Minnesota state house

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

dont' know where else to put this, sorry.

Anyway despite a bad night nationwide, it was good for us here. We made several significant pickups. Jim Rhodes, a long time moderate Republican running for a 7th term in a liberal suburban district just on the cusp of Minneapolis went down hard. he lost by more than 10 points.

27B, the most heavily DFL district outside the Twin Cities and Iron Range was won by Republican Jeff Anderson in 2002. We took it back, when Jeanne Pope defeated him in a rematch. Redistricting pit two incumbents against each other in the district just north of me where I work in 2002. Howard Swenson (R) beat Ruth Johnson (DFL) by a fair margin. Johnson edged out Swenson last night in a rematch. She ran a good campaign pointing out how Swenson is a shill for Pawlenty and the house leadership who don't care about outstate and just affluent suburbs. A 3rd rematch in 2006 would be interesting.

Even though my district isn't in play, John Dorn (DFL) won a 10th term against a Republican who probably outspent him 8:1 judging from all the campaign literature and newspaper ads I saw. The Republicans probably thought they could've bought this district despite it's strong DFL tilt. They were wrong.

45A was rocked with a bit of a scandal when a long time DFL rep from Minneapolis was caught removing campaign literature from Republican incumbent Lynne Osterman and later charged. Republicans hoped this would help Osterman. They were wrong. Sandra Peterson defeated her by about 5 points.

All DFL incumbents outstate won reelection from what i've seen so far. With the social issue-emphasized campaigns against them by the GOP for the past 2 years, this is a good accomplishment.

Dissapointing night for me, but good news for us in Minnesota.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I can't confirm the exact count yet, but I've heard that it's now 63 Republicans and 62 DFLers. This is going to make things for Timmy a lot tougher.

The #3 House Republican also went down.

[No more McShame]

A few questions for my former statesmen in MN

1) How do the approval numbers look for Gov Pawlenty?

2) Is there any idea of who's going to be the DFL candidate for Governor in 2006?

3) Is Ventura's party dead?

Thanks and please be honest and as nonpartisan as possible.  ie... hard numbers for Pawlenty not your personal opinion of the guy

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

1. pretty split.
2. Most likely Attorney General Mike Hatch
3. Not yet, but it's almost there. Right now they got only one member of the legislature, a former moderate Republican state senator who lost the endorsement of the party so she ran on that ticket, won a 3-way race, originally caucused with the Republicans but was kicked out by the Minority Leader (lol, he's such an idiot, too bad he's not taking that post this session), so she joined the DFL caucus. The candidate for US House got about 5% in my district but as far as other House races and most legislative ones went, barely registered.

[No more McShame]

Thanks for the info.  Hatch will be a formidable challenger.  Probably a race to watch in 2006.

[MN-Troy]

dont' know where else to put this, sorry.

Anyway despite a bad night nationwide, it was good for us here. We made several significant pickups. Jim Rhodes, a long time moderate Republican running for a 7th term in a liberal suburban district just on the cusp of Minneapolis went down hard. he lost by more than 10 points.

27B, the most heavily DFL district outside the Twin Cities and Iron Range was won by Republican Jeff Anderson in 2002. We took it back, when Jeanne Pope defeated him in a rematch. Redistricting pit two incumbents against each other in the district just north of me where I work in 2002. Howard Swenson (R) beat Ruth Johnson (DFL) by a fair margin. Johnson edged out Swenson last night in a rematch. She ran a good campaign pointing out how Swenson is a shill for Pawlenty and the house leadership who don't care about outstate and just affluent suburbs. A 3rd rematch in 2006 would be interesting.

Even though my district isn't in play, John Dorn (DFL) won a 10th term against a Republican who probably outspent him 8:1 judging from all the campaign literature and newspaper ads I saw. The Republicans probably thought they could've bought this district despite it's strong DFL tilt. They were wrong.

45A was rocked with a bit of a scandal when a long time DFL rep from Minneapolis was caught removing campaign literature from Republican incumbent Lynne Osterman and later charged. Republicans hoped this would help Osterman. They were wrong. Sandra Peterson defeated her by about 5 points.

All DFL incumbents outstate won reelection from what i've seen so far. With the social issue-emphasized campaigns against them by the GOP for the past 2 years, this is a good accomplishment.

Dissapointing night for me, but good news for us in Minnesota.

State Democrats had a great night in Minnesota. No doubt about that.

In my district (53A), Republican Phil Krinkie (Mr. NO to the Democrats) easily won relection

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

well I also found out one of the Republicans beaten was the one who introduced that bill that would deny financial aid to students convicted of rioting!

woohoo!

[No more McShame]

riot away ;-)

[Fritz]

Actually Jim Rhodes, who you mentioned in the first post, is the only Republican who I have ever actually cast a vote for- I'm a little sorry to see him out.  I voted for him because in 1996, I got campaign literature in the mail from him endorsing hate crime legislation, I thought that was a good thing for the Republican to endorse.  The Democratic candidate for the seat that year (and in '98, I voted for Rhodes again) was some accountant woman with nothing interesting to say and zero politicical experience.  I did vote for the Democrat vs. Rhodes in 2000 (who lost). In '02, Rhodes was re-districted out of my area, and we got to elect Ron Latz to an open seat.  I think Rhodes had to do an incumbent-vs.-incumbent that year.  BRTD, perhaps you can fill me in on the history since then.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm not sure if he was facing another incumbent, but I know Rhodes got screwed by redistricting. His previous district was moderate and DFL-leaning, but it was so that a moderate Republican like him could survive pretty easily. The new one was made much more partisan DFL. He won very narrowly in 2002 winning by only about 2 points with a Green Party candidate taking 4. I suspect that he survived only because Norm Coleman did OK (for a Republican) in that district and the Dem didn't have such huge coattails. This year he was facing a Dem in a district where Kerry was running away with the victory, and he was associated with Pawlenty and co. who aren't too popular there. He was screwed.