Candidates Campaign Hard In Fight For Legislative Control
APPLE VALLEY, Minn. (AP) — Erin Maye Quade was on her second of three passes through Apple Valley neighborhoods to win over voters when a neighbor leaned out of her garage to let tell the Democratic candidate that everyone in the culdesac was gone that weekday afternoon.
"We're all Republicans, so we work," the woman said snidely. With a smile and a cheery "thanks," Maye Quade moved on to the next door.
The fight for legislative majorities is centered in new, unfamiliar territory in Minnesota this year as all of the state's 201 legislators are on the November ballot. For Democrats, the fight to win back the House is taking shape in Minneapolis suburbs like Apple Valley, one of several seats long held by Republicans that Democrats see as needed wins.
Republicans looking to take back the Senate are focusing on a race in Owatonna and rural southeastern Minnesota. The seat is in one of five reliably Republican districts that the GOP needs to peel away from moderate Democrats to take that chamber's majority.
The outcomes in those elections — and roughly 20 other competitive races — will set the course for the next two years of public policy. Gov. Mark Dayton wants Democratic majorities to expand early education and other initiatives in his final years in office, while Republicans are aiming to bolster their legislative foothold as a check on a liberal governor.
Democrats lost a short-lived majority in the House in 2014, due to a poor showing in rural Minnesota. With little hope of recapturing all of those seats, they've shifted some focus to previous GOP strongholds in the suburbs, hoping that GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump hurts fellow Republicans down the ballot.
"We're trying to compete everywhere, but we are expanding the map in the suburbs," House Minority Leader Paul Thissen said.
Maye Quade doesn't talk with Apple Valley voters about her role in the broader struggle for control of the Legislature. Near the top of her door-knocking checklist is gun safety, an issue Democrats are highlighting in the suburbs to make the case that Republicans are out-of-step with their voters by blocking efforts to restrict gun access.
"I guess I never was really focused on getting a majority, and I'm still not because I'm still only one person," Maye Quade said.
Despite being carried by President Barack Obama, the Apple Valley district had been a lock for the GOP incumbent Rep. Tara Mack. But after she was cited last summer for making out in a public park with fellow Republican Rep. Tim Kelly, the pair announced they wouldn't run for re-election — and Mack's district suddenly became a battleground. So did Kelly's seat in Red Wing, a city about 50 miles southeast of Minneapolis.
Two miles down the road from Maye Quade, Ali Jimenez-Hopper — the Republican in the race — reminded a passing voter at a Chamber of Commerce event that all votes are needed to keep the district in Republican hands. With the constant door-knocking, fundraising and raising two young children, Jimenez-Hopper also is feeling the pressure of her race.
"I didn't realize how many people were looking at this seat and what it means for the House," she said. "It's kept me going."
The pace is no slower in southeastern Minnesota, where Faribault Mayor John Jasinski is challenging Democratic Sen. Vicki Jensen.
Republicans have targeted Jensen's seat in their quest to win six districts and the Senate majority. The pressure increased after the state recently finalized massive premium hikes on the individual market for health insurance, which led Dayton to say the Affordable Care Act was "no longer affordable" for too many people.
That's helped Republicans. They fault the Democrat-controlled Legislature's passage of MNsure in 2013 for those hikes, and say the lack of available health care plans in parts of rural Minnesota shows that urban-minded Democrats have given small towns short shrift.
"It's huge. If anything, this issue is bigger in greater Minnesota than it is in the metro area," Senate Minority Leader David Hann said.
Jensen said she knew she was signing up for a grueling re-election when she ran for the open Senate seat in 2012. After decades of electing Republicans, voters narrowly elected her. Jensen tells voters that her four-year record in the state Senate, along with her career as an insurance agent, is essential to helping sort out Minnesota's health care.
Jasinski is leaning on his tenure as Faribault's mayor, including his role in "downsizing government" in the city after taking office during the recession in 2009 by cutting more than a dozen jobs to reduce costs.
Jensen and Jasinski knew their race would be a top target. Just like in Apple Valley and other politically competitive areas in Minnesota, their district has been flooded with tens of thousands of dollars in mailers from outside political groups.
"I'm surprised there wasn't more," Jensen said.
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