Update on the Battle for Minneapolis

It’s a little over a week until the city council election in the state’s largest city. Local socialists are making a bid for functional control of the council, in opposition to more traditional Democrats.

All thirteen city council seats are up. The socialist incumbent in Ward 2 is running unopposed.

The Star Tribune fills out the grid, adding endorsements in Wards not backed by other “pragmatic” groups.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has posted all of its endorsements for the races and they are backing the more traditional (their word, “pragmatic”) Democratic candidates. I’ve updated the candidate matrix accordingly,

For example, the Star Tribune endorses challenger Keysah Magan for Ward 6, and stands as the only organization to back a candidate in that race.

The Star Tribune also backs challengers in the Ward 9 and Ward 10 races.

In the open Ward 12 race, Axios reports on the past support of socialist-backed candidate Aurin Chowdhury for “defund the police” efforts.

In the course of their endorsements, the Star Tribune calls attention to another group, Engage Minneapolis, who endorses their own slate of pragmatic (their word, “common-sense”) Democratic candidates.

Uniquely, Engage endorses the challenger, Victor Martinez, running against the incumbent, Jeremiah Ellison, in Ward 5. Engage also picks 2nd choice candidates in two Wards (10 and 12) for those voters wishing to fill out their ranked-choice ballots. Similarly, the Star Tribune covers every candidate in each Ward, and occasionally makes additional recommendations to voters.

For their part, the socialist-backed candidates in general did not participate in the Star Tribune‘s endorsement process. In addition, Ward 1 incumbent, Elliot Payne, issued a whole statement on Twitter (X) on why he refused to participate.

Buckle up!