How would you vote for Minneapolis mayor?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Cross post from AAD. FYI tomorrow would be the first round held under the old French style runoff system, although the adoption of IRV has eliminated the need for a first round.

Minneapolis uses ranked choice voting for municipal elections, hence the format of this poll, basically IRV except really pedantic people would argue it's not true IRV since you only get three votes. That made counting in 2013 take well over a day because of all the joke candidates, which resulted in the filing fee being raised from $20 to $500. Yes, up until 2013 all it took to get your name on the ballot for Minneapolis mayor was $20. All of them are running as Democrats except the last two, who are running as Greens. There will be no officially endorsed DFL candidate as the vote at the DFL city convention was too split (remember too that it requires 60%, not just a majority to give an endorsement) and voted to adjourn with no endorsement after the first round than hold later ones.

Candidates:

Betsy Hodges - Incumbent. Since taking office she was rated the second worst mayor in the country by the New York Observer, just behind DeBlasio and ahead of Rahm Emanuel, was criticized for posing with with a convicted felon and flashing a hand sign that she supposedly unknowingly knew was a gang symbol, mismanagement of various public transit and infrastructure overhaul projects, and an increase in violent crime. Despite all of this, I would've ranked her as the favorite prior to the Justine Damond shooting...but now with the controversy over the police chief's resignation and attacks on her for trying to get a scapegoat and accusations of mismangement in police hiring standards and training, I think the odds are against her. A few progressive accomplishments under her tenure are the $15 minimum wage passage, requiring all businesses in the city to provide paid sick leave, banning certain types of menthol cigarettes from being sold and the ban on plastic bags despite being preempted by the state...but progressives seem to be pretty upset with her and unforgiving.

Nekima Levy-Pounds - Attorney, former head of the Minneapolis NAACP and civil rights advocate. Didn't even live in Minneapolis until 2015 (lived in the suburb of Brooklyn Park prior), meaning she probably moved specifically for the campaign to bring attention. She's heavily associated with Black Lives Matter and is running on a campaign of criminal justice and police reform. Thanks to the IRV system, she's still a real longshot. I would've given her a chance under the old system of French style runoffs, where if she consolidated the black vote and various progressives she could get a runoff against Hodges and win as the anti-Hodges candidate...but it's tough to see that now.

Jacob Frey - City Councilman from NE Minneapolis. Was an outspoken supporter of Bernie Sanders. He's running as the Berniecrat and is heavily linked to grassroots progressive activist groups. His platform is ending homelessness in Minneapolis in five years, increasing clean energy in the city and eventually requiring all municipal buildings to be 100% clean energy powered, creating more green jobs and urban agriculture, revamp zoning laws to protect artists from gentrification and allow for more affordable housing, and enact pro-density strategies and reforming police training. I have heard progressives criticize him for being too "pro-corporate" (at least that's what my former precinct chairman told me when I ran into him at Pride, although I also learned he no longer lives in Minneapolis and moved to northern Minnesota) and some corporate work he did as an attorney before getting on the council, but so far he seems to be one of the main progressive choices. Came in second at the DFL convention.

Raymond Dehn - A State Representative, whose district is basically most of downtown and some gentrified communities on the west side. Also a Berniecrat heavily linked to his campaign. His campaign seems to be pretty standard stock progressive stuff, more affordable housing, police reform, fighting income inequality, but he's also the only candidate significantly talking about substance addiction treatement and improving city facilities and programs to fight it AND reforming police procedures to push to a rehab-centric policy. He has a lot of support from Our Revolution too and has promised to veto any law opposed by it. He also won a plurality at the DFL convention of 32.44%.

Tom Hoch - Former president of the Hennepin Theater Trust. If elected he'd be Minneapolis' first gay mayor. I haven't paid too much attention to his campaign, but it seems to basically be typical platitudes like "more affordable housing, police reform, more jobs and oh by the way I'm gay, wouldn't it be cool to have a gay mayor?"

Al Flowers - a long term community activist from north Minneapolis. He was actually arrested in 2014 for getting into a scuffle with police while holding a rally against increasing violence in north Minneapolis. He's running on a platform of police accountability and assisting impoverished and neglected communities.

Jeffrey Sterling Olson - Basically your random guy who opted to run candidate of this year. Though he's running as a Democrat, he has a pretty conservative platform, he wants tougher on crime policies and to cut taxes and spending (but specifically NOT to the police), and general "improve infrastructure and public transit" platitudes.

Aswar Rahman - A Bangladeshi immigrant and filmmaker, founder of Minneapolis' independent film studio Cinepolis. He's only 23, but is actually accomplished for his age, he managed to graduate from the University of Minnesota at 19 and staffed for Rybak for three years. He seems to be trying to run a "cool" and non-traditional campaign and doing OMG so exciting and never done before in politics things like making quirky campaign videos or putting out press releases that use lots of slang, but his platform is mostly based on fighting poverty and lowering property taxes.

Captain Jack Sparrow - Long term perrennial joke candidate.

Doug Mann - Nurse and long time Green Party activist, tied to DSA too. Has ran for some city office just about every year since 2001 (usually school board since those are held in main election years), but obviously has never won. He actually ran against Keith Ellison's ex-wife last year for the at large school board seat but lost by about 80-20 (ironically he probably won most of the few Trump voters in the city), I think he might've won the Green Party endorsement, but who cares?

Troy Benjegerdes - Some random guy running as a Green. From a brief glance his campaign seems to be almost exclusively based on promoting renewable energy.

Though it is subject to change before November, my tentative vote is:

1-Frey
2-Dehn
3-Levy-Pounds