Special elections to decide whether DFL, GOP control MN Senate – Twin Cities

Two special elections next Tuesday to fill vacancies in the Minnesota Senate will determine the balance of power in the narrowly divided chamber, where the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party holds a one-seat majority.

In what is seen as the more competitive of the two races, Republican candidate Dwight Dorau faces state Rep. Amanda Hemmingsen-Jaeger, DFL-Woodbury, in a contest to fill the seat for Woodbury-centered District 47. It’s been vacant since former DFL Sen. Nicole Mitchell resigned this summer after her conviction on two felony burglary charges.

Elsewhere Republican Michael Holmstrom Jr. faces DFLer Louis McNutt in the special election for Senate District 29, which includes most of Wright County and parts of Meeker and Hennepin counties. The winner will fill the vacant seat of Sen. Bruce Anderson, R-Buffalo, who died unexpectedly in July at 75.

With the two vacancies, the state Senate currently has 33 DFL and 32 Republican members. If the GOP candidate wins in both of Tuesday’s special elections, the party will secure a one-seat majority in the Senate. If the DFL holds on to one seat, they’ll hold 34 seats and preserve their one-seat majority.

Last year’s election gave the state its most closely divided government ever: a House tied 67-67 between Republicans and DFLers and a Senate split 34-33 with the DFL holding the advantage. Tuesday’s special elections could tweak that delicate balance.

Woodbury Senate race

Senate District 47, which includes Woodbury and south Maplewood, has favored Democrats by double-digit margins in recent elections, though it is not as historically Democratic as the center of the Twin Cities and is seen as the more competitive of the two races.

Hemmingsen-Jaeger has a message focused on tackling rising health care and child care costs, and protecting the environment. Though she also says voters are worried about President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and cuts to federal spending.

“The national is coming up more, I would say, because of the actions the federal government is taking; you can’t ignore them, and it’s affecting our daily lives,” she said. “People’s health insurance is going to go up by double-digit percentages. People are worried about ICE coming into our neighborhoods.”

Hemmingsen-Jaeger, a legislative and policy analyst at the Minnesota Department of Human Services, said her background as a state lawmaker and past work, which includes close to a decade as a forensic scientist at the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, will help her succeed in the Senate.

“I have an understanding of how the legislative process works. I know how to work across the aisle and am very values-driven, solution-focused,” she said. “I think just my approach being a little bit more thoughtful and science-based makes really makes for some good, comprehensive policy.”

Dorau, meanwhile, is hoping that voters will see what could be more than $1 billion of fraud in state government programs and significant spending growth under DFL leadership in recent years as a reason to vote for a Republican candidate.

“A lot of people are still kind of hung up about the overspending, the surplus disappearing,” Dorau said. “The fraud is taking money away from people who duly need it, and it’s also hurting the taxpayers who are paying it.”

Minnesota had a record $18 billion surplus in 2023, and Democrats in control of the state government grew state spending by nearly 40% to fund new programs like free school meals and paid family and medical leave. Minnesota had a $456 million surplus for the current two-year budget cycle, but officials warned earlier this year that the state could face a $6 billion shortfall in 2028-2029.

Dorau, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel who served as a navigator on KC-135 aerial refueling tanker aircraft and an ROTC instructor at Johnson High School in St. Paul, said he is running to “restore representation” following Mitchell’s criminal case and resignation.

While he said he has not heard much from voters about Mitchell’s break-in at her estranged stepmother’s home, it still deprived District 47 of adequate representation in the Senate.

While the state DFL urged Mitchell to resign after the April 2024 break-in, the Senate DFL caucus thwarted efforts to remove her from office, citing due process concerns.

Instead, Senate DFL leaders removed Mitchell from committee assignments and caucus meetings, only allowing her to take part in floor votes. Dorau said this had left Woodbury without full advocacy at the Capitol on issues like securing sales tax exemptions for water treatment projects to address 3M-linked pollution or other proposals to fund infrastructure projects.

“Our current representatives have done nothing to get that along, even though our mayor and our city councilors have been asking for it for a long time,” Dorau said. “Woodbury and Maplewood were underrepresented by our senator and her situation for 18 months.”

Hemmingsen-Jaeger and Rep. Ethan Cha, DFL-Woodbury, introduced a bill to secure the exemptions, but it did not see significant progress in the Legislature this year.

Changing district

Republicans could win Senate District 47, but it won’t be easy. What was once a more politically mixed area has shifted increasingly Democratic in recent years, according to University of Minnesota Political Science Professor Larry Jacobs.

“Voters in that district have changed. We’re seeing more college-educated folks moving in. We’re seeing people who identify as Democrats more moving in, or they’re more moderate,” he said.

In 2024, Hemmingsen-Jaeger won a second term in House District 47A, which makes up one half of the broader Senate District, with 61% of the vote.

Mitchell beat Dorau in the 2022 election with nearly 59% of the vote to Dorau’s 41%. Dorau lost the race for House District 47B in 2024 with 46% of the vote to Cha’s 54%.

Jacobs said messaging by DFLers in upcoming elections will focus on the Trump administration’s actions, while Republicans will try to make upcoming elections a referendum on the record of Gov. Tim Walz and his fellow Democrats.

District 29

District 29 historically supports Republicans and has not attracted the same levels of spending as the contest in the east metro.

“That district has been consistently Republican for a while, and Republicans are winning there by large margins. What’s happening in Woodbury is more of a recent story,” Jacobs said. “It’s evolving. Whereas, 29, it looks like a done deal, it’s just locked in.”

Spending in each of the Senate special elections shed light on the level of interest.

Between July 29 and Oct. 21, Dorau had raised around $52,500 and spent around $37,700 on his campaign, according to pre-election filings with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board. Hemmingsen-Jaeger raised around $47,700 and had spent around $26,500.