All 201 seats in the Minnesota Legislature are up for election this year — in brand-new districts, thanks to redistricting. MinnPost is keeping track of all the candidates who have declared, and you can use the tool below to view or search for candidates, or filter them by party, district or region. (We’re also keeping track of candidates for statewide offices and the U.S. House.) The story will be updated throughout the year as candidates join or drop out of races.
Know about a candidate who’s running that you don’t see listed here? Let us know by emailing whosrunning@minnpost.com.
This page was last updated on Sept. 23.
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This is a great resource! Thank you!
What is interesting to me is that there are so many districts where Republicans are not running candidates at all. The Republican Party used to pride themselves in contesting every legislative race, something I always thought was justified. This time around, when many expect them to pile up record gains, Republicans are not contesting a number of seats.
Any speculation as to why that is?
So why are Republicans refusing to contest so many seats?
Okay, it’s my own view that Republicans are not running candidates in some districts where they always ran candidates before because they are afraid of what those candidates might say. Where I live, where a Republican hasn’t won since 2004, but where \ have always run pretty well, their candidates always run to the center. But those centerist views could be incredibly embarrassing if they were published in greater Minnesota or if Republican statewide candidates had to respond to them. So instead of risking embarrassment, Republicans have decided that the the better option is simply not to run at all.
It continues to amaze me that the story about Republicans not contesting legislative races is going totally uncovered. People like me are left totally in the dark about what is going on in the remote fastnesses of the other party.
Based on Friday’s events, I think we might get closer to the answer, but for me, it is still a matter of totally unsupported speculation. Republicans simply don’t want legislative candidate in districts they won’t carry to be asked questions about controversial issues, in particular, the ones to which Justice Thomas has provided a handy roadmap. Justice Thomas put issues on the table, issues which should now be discussed. Do Republican suburbanites support the abolition of gay marriage? Do they support making certain sexual practices a crime? Should the state have the power to make birth control a crime? For half a century or so, those issues have been off the table. Now they are very much on the table, and I truly regret that I won’t have a Republican legislative candidate knocking on my door whom I can ask about them.