I have been a reliable voter all my life; however, this was the first Minneapolis municipal election I was actually informed about, and I felt good about entering my polling place. I have written about what I was learning a few times a week on my blog.
Here are my thoughts about the recent election.
Nationally
Democrats had a good day nationally, but most of the victories were expected, so to me, this is just a little sign of hope for my party. We still have a long way to go to get ready for the 2026 midterms.
Mamdani’s win in NYC is interesting, but I don’t think it means the Democratic Party’s future success will hinge on embracing the DSA left. What plays in NYC is not predictive of what plays nationally. The NYC mayor’s influence nationally has always been overstated: John Lindsey, Rudy Giuliani, and Mike Bloomberg all thought it was a ticket to the presidency. Mamdani had the good fortune to be running against a pretty weak field: Cuomo couldn’t keep it in his pants and earned a kiss of death endorsement from Trump. The Republican candidate was inconsequential and lacked the party’s weight behind him. I assume governing will be a lot harder for Mamdani than campaigning.
Minneapolis
Mayor Jacob Frey survived the left-wing “anybody but Frey/slate for change.” He will be working with a left-wing majority City Council, but it does not appear to be the veto-proof City Council of the last couple of years. All the same, I think he is going to need to reinvent his leadership style to be more compromising and collaborative to get anything done.
DSA and DSA-aligned City Council candidates had a good day (with one exception, Katie Cashman)—they maintained their majority, but not a veto-proof majority. The City Council may even be more Frey-friendly than expected, for example, Jamal Osman told supporters after winning re-election that he plans to be a swing voter on the Council. Per the Star Tribune, “Osman mostly voted with the progressive faction of the council over the past two years, joining them on five of the eight attempts to override a Frey veto. But he swung moderate twice on votes over the creation of a Minneapolis Labor Standards Board and the affordable housing first-right-of-refusal ordinance. Osman has often distanced himself from the DSA’s skepticism toward policing, and before the progressive bloc took control two years ago, he frequently voted with the comparatively moderate majority.”
In Ward 7 Katie Cashman and her supporters will likely blame their loss on money. This was the most expensive Minneapolis City Council race in history. Elizabeth Shaffer out fundraised Cashman and benefited from PAC investments and the soft power of the Precarious State documentary. However, Cashman lost because she was out of alignment with her Ward 7 constituency; Shaffer won because she was aligned with Ward 7. Cashman aligned with the broader Minneapolis electorate but not with the majority of her Ward. The PAC mailers supporting Shaffer resonated with voters, while PAC mailers supporting Cashman were counterproductive and undermined her candidacy.
Newcomer Eric Harris Bernstein was a big winner on the Board of Estimate and Taxation (BET). Bernstein had strong support from progressives, but he also won because of his relatively youthful enthusiasm, strong social media presence, and his earnest approach to his fiduciary duty. He also managed to get both of his opponents to recommend ranking him. Incumbent Steve Brandt was also elected.
Before the election, I didn’t dig into the Park Board election beyond my own District 6 race and the at-large positions. The race was dominated by labor issues and progressive causes (Park employees went on strike last year, among other labor-related problems). Labor unions put a lot of effort and money into Park Board races. For at-large, two progressive labor-endorsed candidates (incumbent Tom Olsen and newcomer Amber A. Frederick) were elected. Moderate incumbent Meg Forney was also elected to an at-large seat. By my count, five of the six district commissioners elected were in the progressive/labor wing.
