The race for Minneapolis city council is underway

The window for candidate filings opened on August 1 and runs through August 15. The filings, so far, do include a few surprises.

All thirteen seats on the Minneapolis City Council will be on the ballot this November. Because the city uses ranked-choice voting (RCV) to select winners, there will be no primary election. All candidates who file will be on the November ballot.

At least one candidate has filed for each of the 13 seats (wards). Incumbents from 11 of the 13 wards have filed for re-election.

Lisa Goodman (Ward 7) and Andrew Johnson (Ward 12), both long-time members, have announced that they will not be running this year.

The dominant Minneapolis DFL Party (Democratic-Farmer-Labor) endorsed candidates for 9 of the 13 wards.

The local chapter of the upstart Democrat Socialists of America (TC DSA) has their own endorsing process for the Minneapolis City Council.

The TC DSA also dabbles in campaign finance. It has its own registered PAC, which recently donated $5,000 to the newly formed PAC, Minneapolis for the Many.

In seven of the wards, more than two candidates have already filed, meaning that these races will be decided by the RCV process.

A couple of individual filings are noteworthy. In Ward 6, challenger Tiger Worku is among the four candidates who have filed. You will recall that last month we reviewed the 21-year-old’s autobiography, Mosaic Republic. Incumbent Jamal Osman is defending his seat. As three candidates have filed in this ward, RCV will be employed.

In Ward 10, challenger Nasri Warsame has filed, listing his party affiliation as Democratic-Farmer-Labor. You will recall that the DFL expelled Warsame for his role in the dustup at the ward’s May endorsing convention. In this ward, Aisha Chughtai is the incumbent and DFL-endorsed candidate, taking on three challengers.

Warsame finally got around to filing his campaign finance report. He reports raising almost $23,000 for the race between May 1 and July 19. His donors are an entrepreneurial lot, with all by one reporting that they are “self-employed.”

We will update this post as more candidates file.