Good morning. Lots of election results to process: Here’s what we know.
The Minneapolis proposal to replace the police department with a new public safety agency failed 56-44 percent. The measure deeply divided city leaders and became the focus of intense national scrutiny. In a stunning turn, two City Council members who supported overhauling the police — Phillipe Cunningham and Jeremy Schroeder — lost their bids for reelection Tuesday. LaTrisha Vetaw and Emily Koski are the newly elected council members, and more incumbents are locked in tight races as ranked choice vote counting resumes today. Mayor Jacob Frey, who opposed the measure, said it was time now to find consensus on law enforcement reform. “I think all of us can now stop with the hashtags and the slogans and the simplicity, and say let’s all unite around things that we all agree on,” he said. Backers contended that a complete remake of public safety was needed in the wake of the May 2020 killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer and that the current force could not be reformed. Frey, Minneapolis police Chief Medaria Arradondo and other leaders, however, warned the changes wouldn’t repair relations between residents and police and could seriously damage a department already severely understaffed.
Speaking of Frey, he has a wide lead after the first round of ranked choice votes were tallied, but not the majority required to win outright. Headed into the next round of counting this morning, Frey has about 43 percent. Sheila Nezhad had 21 percent and Kate Knuth had 18 percent in the first round. Meanwhile in St. Paul, Mayor Melvin Carter cruised to a second term with nearly 62 percent of the vote. And another ballot question was approved in Minneapolis that will change city government to a “strong mayor” system. “It allows us to get real and serious about the work ahead,” Frey said. “It allows us to have a delineation between who is in charge of what, and I think that will also push back on a lot of the silly disagreements we've seen over the last year and a half."
One more note from MPR’s David Montgomery: Precinct data analyzed by MPR News showed Frey’s fortunes were closely tied to how Minneapolis voters felt about the effort to overhaul city policing and replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a public safety department. The vote showed a very strong relationship between support for Frey and opposition to the public safety department. The stronger Frey did in a precinct, the better “No” tended to do on the police overhaul question.
Rent control proposals were approved by voters in St. Paul and Minneapolis. The St. Paul measure limits rent increases to 3 percent per year. The Minneapolis one starts the process of coming up with a rent control strategy. Opponents of the measures far outspent supporters, but money didn’t tell the tale. “We knew we would be outspent 20-1 by national interests intent on protecting unlimited profits for landlords and real estate speculators, but we were not intimidated and we knew our community needed action now,” said Tram Hoang, Keep St. Paul Home campaign manager. The opponents put out a statement too: “The Sensible Housing Ballot committee is deeply disappointed in the results in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Our historic coalition of jobs and housing providers will engage with a new Minneapolis City Council on the policy discussion around rent control. As Mayor Melvin Carter has said, we need to fix the St. Paul rent control ordinance that will limit the development of new affordable housing in a region that badly needs it. Rent control will be a major discouragement to new housing investment in our core cities.”
Nationally, it was a good night for Republicans, and Democrats are worried about next year’s midterm elections. In Virginia, Republican Glenn Youngkin crushed former governor Terry McAuliffe’s comeback bid. Republicans also appeared to sweep the other statewide races in Virginia. And in what may be an even more ominous sign for some Democrats, incumbent Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is locked in a tight race that is still too close to call with Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli. Here’s the New York Times story.
As the counting continues we’ll keep reporting. Keep an eye on MPRNews.org and I’ll have more here tomorrow. | 