A slate of far-left candidates backed by a group supporting State Sen. Omar Fateh have won a majority on the Minneapolis City Council. This, coupled with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s reelection win, could set city hall up for a contentious few years.
Minneapolis for the Many (MFTM), a political action committee, has spent the last several months boosting far-left city candidates running for office in Minneapolis this year.
The group endorsed Fateh as their first choice for Minneapolis mayor, supported several city council candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and pushed other left-wing candidates.
Conversely, a group called All of Minneapolis (AOM) supported Frey and a separate slate of candidates. While the AOM candidates are left-wing in their own right, they are generally regarded as less extreme when compared with the MFTM candidates.
On Tuesday, all 13 seats on the Minneapolis City Council were up for election. Voters elected seven of the MFTM candidates and six of the AOM candidates. As such, the council appears to be under the control of the city’s more progressive flank.
Four of the elected MFTM candidates are supported by the DSA, and six of the seven MFTM candidates are incumbents returning to the council. In total, nine incumbents won their reelection campaigns and four newcomers will be seated on the council next January.
Notably, only one incumbent on the Minneapolis City Council lost on Tuesday: Katie Cashman. Representing Ward 7, Cashman was supported by MFTM and lost to AOM-backed Elizabeth Shaffer in one of the most closely-watched races of the night.
All but one of the 13 city council elections were decided on the first ballot of the city’s ranked-choice voting system. The one contest that went to the second round of balloting was in Ward 5 where AOM-backed candidate Pearll Warren prevailed.
In recent years, Frey has clashed with the far-left members of the council. Given the one-vote MFTM majority on the city council, newly-reelected Frey could once again be faced with a city council at odds with his own agenda.
Luke Sprinkel
Luke Sprinkel previously worked as a Legislative Assistant at the Minnesota House of Representatives. He grew up as a Missionary Kid (MK) living in England, Thailand, Tanzania, and the Middle East. Luke graduated from Regent University in 2018.
