Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Elections - City Councils and Commissions - Policies
MNdible
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Re: Minneapolis City Politics General Discussion

Postby MNdible » April 28th, 2021, 9:36 am

We do have general elections. They're not perfect, but they're so much better than caucuses.

In a city where it's a foregone conclusion that the winner of any election will be some flavor of DFLer, why not just let the electorate-at-large sort it out?

amiller92
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Re: Minneapolis City Politics General Discussion

Postby amiller92 » April 28th, 2021, 3:51 pm

Please don't let the DFL Senior Caucus pick the direction of Minneapolis for the next 4 years.
Yes, this.

twincitizen
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Re: Minneapolis City Politics General Discussion

Postby twincitizen » April 29th, 2021, 8:50 am

We do have general elections. They're not perfect, but they're so much better than caucuses.

In a city where it's a foregone conclusion that the winner of any election will be some flavor of DFLer, why not just let the electorate-at-large sort it out?
Yes, this.


Sidebar: I kinda miss the primary for its ability to narrow down the candidates to the two front-runners. The 2013 mayoral election was nuts, with dozens of unserious fringe candidates getting media coverage they didn't deserve, though it was pretty clear by mid-summer that the race was between Hodges and Mark Andrew. 2017 was arguably worse - despite the lack of dozens of nobodies like 2013, we had 5 candidates running well-funded campaigns and capturing >15k first-choice votes (Frey, Dehn, Hodges, Hoch, Levy-Pounds). Instead of doing a DFL endorsement, could we instead combine that with a ranked-choice primary election in the summer? Then the top two mayoral candidates can continue on to the November "runoff" ballot, and the two most popular candidates can more clearly articulate their positions/differences to voters.

tedlanda2571
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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby tedlanda2571 » June 9th, 2021, 5:49 am

Apparently, Alondra Cano was a shill for corporate developers this whole time!

https://www.startribune.com/city-wants- ... 600066094/

mattaudio
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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby mattaudio » June 9th, 2021, 9:25 am

Are they plants to make the Frey Slate look just ever so slightly appealing by comparison?

uptownbro
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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby uptownbro » June 9th, 2021, 10:35 am

I had no idea there were evil plans to make GFS the new uptown/northloop and Frey was pulling all the strings .
Glad Alex jones is running for CC. Its not uncommon for people running for office to plant good or purposely bad op eds. There are legit issues about opening vs not opening the square. Not sure this is one

phop
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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby phop » June 9th, 2021, 11:46 am

You don't even have to look at the Frey slate here, depending on your point of view. There are viable progressive, non-tinfoil hat alternatives in each of these specific races.

thespeedmccool
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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby thespeedmccool » June 9th, 2021, 4:07 pm

Something I cannot stand in all politics (especially local politics) is the refusal to take actions and words at their face value. This essay reeks of conspiracy theorizing and dishonesty. Frey and his allies don't want to gentrify GFS and don't have any intentions of brushing Floyd's murder under the rug; they just disagree on how to properly address the intersection, and more broadly, systemic racism.

To forward the idea that Frey, Cano, and Jenkins all support reopening the intersection to gentrify the neighborhood is to purposefully misunderstands the trio's intentions for political gain. Not just that, but it also seems like the authors don't really understand gentrification as an issue. It sounds like if they have their way, any development led by a corporation or perceived to be too "yuppie" would be rejected. They might even be uninformed enough to oppose transit expansion for fear of gentrification.

Some city council candidates are real quacks - they either don't get the issues, purposefully misunderstand them, or both. Really hope that they don't make it to City Hall.

Silophant
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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby Silophant » June 9th, 2021, 5:25 pm

These three are all definitely in the "anything I don't like is gentrification" camp of left-NIMBYs.
Joey Senkyr
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amiller92
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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby amiller92 » June 10th, 2021, 6:00 am

The funny thing is the real risk of the g word is at Chicago and Lake.

EOst
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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby EOst » June 10th, 2021, 5:35 pm

https://www.startribune.com/minneapolis ... 600066740/

Endorsements in 1 (Payne over Reich), 4 (Cunningham), 7 (Goodman), 8 (Jenkins), 9 (open, Chavez), 12 (Johnson), and 13 (Palmisano).

Ellison (5) came within two points of losing the DFL endorsement to Victor Martinez:
For the Fifth Ward seat in north Minneapolis, Victor Martinez received 58% of delegate votes to Ellison's 39%.

Martinez is a Mexican American pastor who is new to city politics and has been running on the platform of lowering crime through youth diversion and community empowerment and rehabbing W. Broadway.

He said Thursday that his campaign message has resonated with delegates in his ward because "we don't want less police here. We want more."

Martinez claimed that the DFL endorsement was not transparent and that some of his delegates' ballots were invalidated. Hogan rejected those claims, saying the raw data is public.

Ellison has been one of the council's most stalwart advocates to reduce the police budget to fund alternative ways to prevent violence.

In an interview Thursday, Ellison pointed to the contentious year the city has grappled with and said residents are upset and questioning current leadership.

"My opponents are working hard as they should be, and I'm working hard as well," Ellison said. "My big thing is that there's no endorsement, and I'm going to be running until November."
Schroeder (11) ran well behind Koski, and Rainville also did very well in 3.

amiller92
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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby amiller92 » June 10th, 2021, 6:33 pm

https://www.startribune.com/minneapolis ... 600066740/

Endorsements in 1 (Payne over Reich), 4 (Cunningham), 7 (Goodman), 8 (Jenkins), 9 (open, Chavez), 12 (Johnson), and 13 (Palmisano).

Ellison (5) came within two points of losing the DFL endorsement to Victor Martinez:
For the Fifth Ward seat in north Minneapolis, Victor Martinez received 58% of delegate votes to Ellison's 39%.

Martinez is a Mexican American pastor who is new to city politics and has been running on the platform of lowering crime through youth diversion and community empowerment and rehabbing W. Broadway.

He said Thursday that his campaign message has resonated with delegates in his ward because "we don't want less police here. We want more."

Martinez claimed that the DFL endorsement was not transparent and that some of his delegates' ballots were invalidated. Hogan rejected those claims, saying the raw data is public.

Ellison has been one of the council's most stalwart advocates to reduce the police budget to fund alternative ways to prevent violence.

In an interview Thursday, Ellison pointed to the contentious year the city has grappled with and said residents are upset and questioning current leadership.

"My opponents are working hard as they should be, and I'm working hard as well," Ellison said. "My big thing is that there's no endorsement, and I'm going to be running until November."
Schroeder (11) ran well behind Koski, and Rainville also did very well in 3.
"Very well" means was well behind and not close to endorsement?? Fletcher looks okay against Rainville. Ellison and Schroeder look like they are in trouble.

I gave them both money today and will have to do more to help them.

alexschief
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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby alexschief » June 11th, 2021, 10:22 am

Funny set of results that defy any clear cut narrative. Progressives and moderates have various reasons to celebrate or worry.

On the northside, Cunningham appears to be much stronger than previously supposed. Vetaw may have caused fatal damage to her campaign with her comments in that forum with local landlords. At the same time, Ellison is clearly in deep trouble. I only wouldn't count him out for two reasons, (1) his connections allow him to call in some serious back-up, and (2) Martinez has some huge vulnerabilities as a candidate, including being strongly pro-life and apparently voting as a Republican (Trump was the only person on the primary ballot) in 2020, neither of which are widely known yet and will surely be hammered going forward.

The other two incumbents with big problems are Reich and Schroeder. I've thought for a while that people might be sleeping on W1, Reich barely squeaked by last time and doesn't have a high profile. The scale of his loss to Payne suggests that he may be toast or that he was caught napping and this will be a big wakeup call. Losing the endorsement will be hard to recover from however. Meanwhile Schroeder also got a big wakeup call, but unlike Reich, he didn't lose the endorsement, so he's got a better chance to recover and make it a photo finish in W11. I'd be sad to see him lose, I think he's one of the best Councilmembers and he's taken a bunch of hard but principled votes.

Two incumbents who I don't think are in trouble are Fletcher and Gordon. Even though Fletcher didn't win the endorsement, he ran far ahead of Rainville and I think W3 is pretty progressive (it almost elected a literal Trotskyite four years ago). Gordon also seems in decent shape. He is a good representative for W2, he has name recognition, and without a DFL endorsement, he's on even footing as a Green.

The two big open seat races look to be headed for a progressive flip and a progressive hold. None of the candidates in W9 have really impressed me, but Chavez appears to have broken through and captured the people on the ground. With the endorsement, it's probably all over there, and if he only shows up to work every day he'll be an improvement on Cano. In W10, the three progressive candidates picked up 60% of the vote, which is only a bit down from the 64% that Bender won four years ago. I think this race has some really interesting RCV possibilities. Chughtai and Jones are both strong progressive candidates, but Jones is an engineer and neighborhood volunteer, while Chughtai (who was a co-author of that Strib op-ed) is a career activist. I think that if Jones can make it to the final two in the voting, then she will pull ahead of Chughtai based on the third choices of more moderate voters. But if another candidate like Gibson can consolidate enough moderate votes and Chughtai wins enough progressive votes to push Jones into third, then I think Chughtai wins based on redistributed votes from Jones.

Overall, I think the default assumption right now should be that the balance of power on the council will remain very similar. W1 and W9 look very likely to be progressive gains. W5 and W11 look likely to be moderate gains. W4 and W10 look like progressive holds at this point. There's probably more potential for a moderate wave, if something unexpected happens in those latter two wards. But at the same time, I think the endangered progressive incumbents have more hope than the endangered moderate incumbent, and one ward already looks like a certain progressive flip.

MNdible
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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby MNdible » June 11th, 2021, 10:33 am

I guess the big question with all of these results is whether we expect the election voters will be similar to the endorsement voters. Typically, the assumption would be that the endorsement voters are going to be more progressive than general election voters. I've heard some suggestions that the anti-defund voting block was well organized, so maybe that's not true this year.

The second question might be how closely voters are paying attention. The DFL endorsement makes a huge difference when you're talking about down ballot races that are off most people's radar. In a municipal-only year, the mayor and city council race will be the biggest thing going. So it seems entirely possible that a well-funded and well-organized candidate could overcome the advantage of the endorsement.

thespeedmccool
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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby thespeedmccool » June 11th, 2021, 12:07 pm

Funny set of results that defy any clear cut narrative.
As a non-Minneapolitan, this seems to be the most reasonable sum up of the results. Anyone trying to spin a narrative can find something they like here.

I'm thinking the DFL will fail to endorse anyone in the mayor's race (I'm imagining Frey has 30-40% locked up based on these results, and the others will split the leftovers.) Generally speaking, I think some people are underrating Frey's chances of pulling home a second term.

Based on these results, I think it's also fair to say that the city is 55-60%~ in favor of defunding, backed up by last year's ACLU poll that had support around 60%. My impression is that anti-defund activists rallied and showed up in outsized fashion, making Ellison and others look much more vulnerable than they actually may be.

We'll see what happens, but I'm gonna say pro-defunders pick up one seat overall. A mixed bag here, but that's not really a surprise.

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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby dajazz » June 11th, 2021, 1:10 pm

I'd be completely fine with Fletcher (and Schroeder) losing. Fletcher won't, especially with ranked choice but as a resident of W3 I'd love some better candidates in 2 years.

SurlyLHT
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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby SurlyLHT » June 11th, 2021, 1:53 pm

Personally, I feel like there's a long way to go an a good level of uncertainty. We'll get a better picture after each month passes. The Defunders were better organized with the delegates, it'll be interesting to see if their organization can get out actual voters as well in the General.

alexschief
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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby alexschief » June 11th, 2021, 4:20 pm

It's very funny to me that both sides seem to believe the other was more organized, and thus, that their results were more artificial.

I think progressives have a stronger identity and clearer objectives, but to the extent that a single group was actually "organizing" behind a slate of candidates, it seemed like the moderate side with the "Operation Safety Now" and "DFL Senior Caucus" might have had the edge. Who knows though, really. These caucuses are largely silly, there's always a completely disproportionate amount of complaining that surrounds them. The most useful information for prognostication is probably how various candidates performed relative to expectations, versus any exact number.

amiller92
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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby amiller92 » June 12th, 2021, 8:59 am

There's going to be a ton of money spent backing conservative candidates. The problem, like last time, is that a new glossy mailer every day doesn't really do all that much to move anyone. Those afraid of change are motivated at the moment. Progressive are going to need to overcome that with organizing of their own.

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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby uptownbro » June 14th, 2021, 8:40 am

Usually these just play to the parties base its hard to read much into them. Sometimes it shows where the party is moving other times it means nothing. Walz didnt get the DFL nomination at the convention and still won over voters. It will be a fight for these seats. My only hope is we have better leadership on all sides then what we have had over the past 12 months.


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