Election 2022
U.S. House GOP picks leadership team for next Congress: McCarthy, Scalise and Emmer
WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans elected their slate of leaders for the 118th Congress on Tuesday, even though the party hadn’t yet secured the seats needed to take the majority come January. The new leadership team emerged from several contested races decided during an hours-long secret ballot voting session, including a three-way campaign for whip […]
Why Minnesota Republicans can’t afford to write off the Twin Cities
The urban-rural divide in Minnesota and U.S. politics has only grown starker in recent years. In elections going back a decade or more, a favorite subject of political reporters and pundits has been Democrats’ supposed alienation of rural folk. Reporters have visited rural diners, they’ve visited other rural diners, and sometimes they even went to […]
Scott Jensen admits he misjudged Minnesotans’ priorities in run for governor
Republican nominee for governor Scott Jensen lost to Gov. Tim Walz by nearly 200,000 votes on Election Day, and over the weekend he confessed he mistakenly downplayed the importance of abortion among Minnesotans. Jensen waffled on the issue during the campaign, initially saying in an interview that he wanted to ban abortion in Minnesota with […]
Data shows widening partisan divide between cities, greater Minnesota
Gov. Tim Walz handily beat Republican challenger Scott Jensen on Tuesday, with preliminary data showing Walz with nearly an 8-point margin. While comfortable, that margin is somewhat diminished from Walz’s first campaign in 2018, when he defeated Jeff Johnson by more than 11% for the gubernatorial seat vacated by Mark Dayton. Below the surface, however, […]
Democrats projected to retain U.S. Senate control after winning Nevada seat
Democratic U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada will win reelection, according to Associated Press projections late Saturday, ensuring Democrats will remain in the majority next year no matter what happens in a runoff election in Georgia next month. After days of vote counting, U.S. Sens. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Cortez Masto were both […]
Young Black and Latino voters seen as key in turning back midterm ‘red wave’
WASHINGTON — Young Black and Latino voters were critical in holding off the Republican “red wave” in several battleground states for U.S. Senate seats and in tight U.S. House races in the midterm elections, according to analyses by researchers and grassroot organizations. Young, diverse voters between the ages of 18 and 29 had the second-highest […]
Record-setting number of women elected as governors in midterms
WASHINGTON — The United States’ ceiling for female governors was shattered this week, with voters in 12 states electing women to the role, breaking the prior record of nine set for the first time back in 2004. While not all of the gubernatorial campaigns have been called as of Thursday afternoon, Arizona and Oregon voters […]
GOP on track to control U.S. House, but dozens of races still undecided
Republicans remained on pace to likely wrest control of the U.S. House, even as Democrats picked up a few more victories in close races late Wednesday and into the day Thursday. As of about 5 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, The Associated Press had called 209 races for Republicans. That put them ahead of Democrats’ 191, […]
Minnesota teachers’ union pushing for multibillion-dollar education investment
Minnesota’s teachers’ union is pushing lawmakers to make a multibillion-dollar investment in the state’s public schools now that education- and union-friendly Democrats have full control of state government. Education Minnesota, which played a big role in the DFL’s electoral victory, said on Thursday that it will lobby legislative leaders and Gov. Tim Walz — a […]
Which party controls Congress? It could be days or weeks before we know
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden and Democrats exulted Wednesday in outperforming expectations in the midterm elections, even as vote-counting was still in progress and control of both chambers of Congress remained unknown. The U.S. Senate will go to the winner of two of the last three races where party control is still in doubt in […]
Walz hopeful about agenda in second term
Gov. Tim Walz said during a post-election victory news conference that full Democratic control of state government would allow his administration to enact a long-delayed progressive program. Perhaps as shocked as other politicos about the outcome of what many thought would be a commanding Republican victory, Walz provided few specifics on what his first priorities […]
Minnesota voter turnout shaping up to be highest in nation yet again
Minnesota voter turnout on Tuesday came in at a respectable 60.66%, according to Secretary of State Steve Simon. While that’s shy of the near record-setting 64.3% in 2018, it’s still comfortably above the average for midterm years going back to at least 1950. Since the year 2000, midterm elections featuring a Republican presidential incumbent have […]