Minnesota Senate DFL takes back majority in Minneapolis special election

Alex Derosier, Pioneer Press on Jan 28, 2025

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ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party will have a majority in the Minnesota Senate once again after their candidate won a special election in a Minneapolis district on Tuesday.

Candidate Doron Clark held an overwhelming lead in election results late Tuesday in a DFL-dominated district. In preliminary results Tuesday night, Clark had 91% of the vote compared to Republican Abigail Wolters’ 9%. As of just after 9 p.m. 100% of precincts had reported results.

Once he’s sworn into office, it’ll mean the end of a partisan tie in the chamber where DFL and Republican members have been operating on a power-sharing agreement since the legislative session started on Jan. 14. The Senate has been at a 33-33 split for a month.

The special election took place in Northeast Minneapolis’ Senate District 60, a Democratic stronghold DFL Sen. Kari Dziedzic represented for over a decade until her death in December.

“During this difficult time, for the Minnesota Senate and the people living in Senate District 60, we’ve been guided by the example of brilliant leadership set by the late Senator Dziedzic,” said Senate DFL Caucus Leader Erin Murphy. “With Senator-elect Clark, we are committed to bringing the light of her legacy to bear on our work for Minnesotans across the state.”

Wolters and Senate Republicans couldn’t immediately be reached for comment late Tuesday.

It was all but certain a DFLer would take Dziedzic’s former seat. Clark won a competitive primary election on Jan 14, where he received 38% of the vote. The more than 2,000 votes he received in the primary is nearly 10 times the total number of votes cast in the GOP primary Wolters won.

DFL and Republican caucuses in the Senate started operating on a power-sharing agreement on the first day of the 2025 Legislative session.

Under the agreement, they elected Sen. Bobby Joe Champion, DFL-Minneapolis and Sen. Jeremy Miller, R-Winona, as “Co-Presiding Officers.” They also split Senate committee seats between the parties and appointed co-chairs.

Party relations in the chamber have been smooth compared to the ongoing power struggle in the House. But the calm showed some cracks Monday, one day ahead of the election, as Republicans moved to expel Woodbury DFL Sen. Nicole Mitchell from office.

Mitchell is accused of breaking into her stepmother’s house last year and is set to go to trial for felony burglary after the end of the legislative session in May.

While Republicans had pushed to remove her last year, they held off for the first two weeks of the 2025 session.

Senate DFLers shut down the Republican push to remove Mitchell with a procedural vote and they aren’t scheduled to reconvene until Thursday. Some Democrats have called for Mitchell to resign, but it’s unclear if there are enough to give Republicans the 42-vote threshold they need to remove a colleague from office.

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