Minnesota

Peggy Flanagan won the Senate seat over Republican Michele Tafoya, 53.7% to 43.5%, and Amy Klobuchar won the governor’s office over Republican Lisa Demuth, 55.5% to 42.6%. Democrats held both offices already, and all five constitutional offices stayed with them, the House’s news service reported.¹ In our count Keith Ellison won the attorney general’s office by 8.8 points and Secretary of State Steve Simon was re-elected by 12.9; Zack Filipovich won the auditor’s office.² The U.S. House delegation was split four to four. Democrats have won four seats and Republicans three, and the last, the First District, is not called.

Kamala Harris carried Minnesota by 4.3 points, and Flanagan’s margin was 5.9 points wider; Klobuchar’s was 8.6 points wider. Flanagan drew 92 votes for every 100 of Harris’s, and Tafoya 81 for every 100 of Donald Trump’s. The Senate race drew 2,832,773 votes, 113% of the 2022 total and 87% of the 2024 presidential vote.

The Minneapolis area, with 63% of the vote, went from D+18.4 to D+23.6, a move of 5.2 points. The smaller metro areas moved furthest, 7.5 points, and changed sides, from R+5.3 to D+2.2. The small towns and rural counties moved least, 4.0 points, and still voted Republican by 25.2.

The largest of the six counties that voted for Trump in 2024 and for Flanagan this year is Anoka County, in the Minneapolis metro area. It went from R+4.4 to D+1.9 on 181,948 votes. Blue Earth County, around Mankato, made the same crossing with more room, from R+1.2 to D+7.0. St. Louis County, around Duluth, moved 8.6 points. Hennepin County, the largest county, moved only 3.3, while Ramsey County moved 8.2. A county in Anoka’s own metro area went the other way: Carver County was R+5.4 in 2024 and R+7.0 this year.

Democrats held the governor’s office and the Senate before the election, and the House was tied at 67, run under a power-sharing agreement.^{3, 4} Now they hold both chambers, 39 to 28 in the Senate and 77 to 57 in the House, and with Klobuchar they control state government. The House majority is the largest since an 87-47 majority in 2009 and 2010, and Democrats flipped House districts around Duluth, Mankato and Winona as well as several in the Twin Cities, the House’s news service reported. Eleven incumbents lost, all but one of them Republicans.^{1, 5, 6} Both majorities are short of the two-thirds a veto override takes, which is 45 senators and 90 representatives.⁷

The constitution gives the Legislature the power to draw congressional and legislative districts at its first session after each federal census, and a bill passes over a governor’s veto only with two-thirds of each house.⁷ The secretary of state, one of five executive officers the voters elect, chairs the State Canvassing Board, which certifies results.^{1, 2, 7}

“We will be laser-focused on making life more affordable for Minnesotans,” said Zack Stephenson, whom House Democrats chose as speaker-designate at the end of election week; Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy also named the cost of living a top priority.³ Klobuchar named a 14-member transition team on November 4, chaired by former human services commissioner Cindy Jesson.⁸

A constitutional amendment in Minnesota is ratified only if a majority of everyone voting in the election votes for it, so a ballot left blank on the question counts as a no.^{7, 9} The one amendment on the ballot raises the yearly distribution from the Permanent School Fund from 2.5% to 4.5%, about $33 more per student. It drew 75.6% of the yes and no votes in our count, and KAXE reported that voters approved it; the first larger payment comes in July 2027.⁹

In Hennepin County, state Rep. Cedrick Frazier, a Democrat, beat former acting U.S. Attorney Anders Folk by less than 2 percentage points in the unofficial tally for the open county attorney’s seat left by Mary Moriarty. MPR News reported that Frazier will be the county’s first African American county attorney.¹⁰ On the same ballot as the school fund amendment, voters backed school board incumbents and rejected most districts’ requests for tax increases: 30 percent of operating referendums passed, MPR reported. In St. Paul nearly 80 percent approved an ordinance that lets renters take a rent reduction or reimbursement for repairs costing up to $500 or half their rent, whichever is more, after giving the landlord two weeks’ notice.⁸

Republicans kept three U.S. House seats. The narrowest was the Eighth District, which Pete Stauber won by 6.2 points; Tom Emmer won the Sixth by 11.6 and Michelle Fischbach the Seventh by 29.9. Tafoya carried 72 of the 87 counties, and three moved toward the Republicans from 2024. In the Legislature Democrats go into the session with an 11-vote edge in the Senate and a 20-vote cushion in the House, MPR reported; Rep. Harry Niska, their House leader, said the caucus’s feeling was resolve.¹¹ Rep. Nolan West of Blaine led House District 32A by 22 votes of 23,644, a margin that qualifies for a recount paid for by the state.¹

Neither of Minnesota’s Senate seats is on the 2028 ballot as a regular election. Klobuchar will resign from the Senate to become governor but has not said when, and MPR reported she seemed to signal that she, not Gov. Tim Walz, will make the temporary appointment.⁸ State law fills a Senate vacancy for the rest of the term by a special election at the next November election, counting November of an odd-numbered year, if the vacancy comes at least 11 weeks before the primary that precedes it.¹² The governor’s term is four years and House members serve two, so the new House majority is the next to face the voters, in 2028. The session begins January 12, 2027.^{5, 7}

The First Congressional District, which a Republican holds, is not called: Democrat Jake Johnson leads Republican Rep. Brad Finstad by 0.1 points in our count. As of November 9 the secretary of state’s results showed Johnson 322 votes ahead with every precinct reporting, and the Associated Press had not called the race. The State Canvassing Board meets November 19 to make results official, and a recount cannot be requested until after that.¹³ MPR News reported that Finstad asked for a recount on November 5; state law provides a recount at public cost when the margin is within 0.25 percent.² Two state Senate races and House District 32A were also headed for recounts, though the Democrats keep both majorities whatever they show.^{1, 5}