Last month,  Peter Callaghan, Greta Kaul, and Tom Nehil published an informative article on Minnpost.com titled “Who’s running for the Minnesota Legislature.” It lists the current shape of the 67 Minnesota Senate races and 134 Minnesota House races. It includes useful filters so you can narrow down the list. 

In a recent blog post, I wrote that one person with energy and determination can have a significant impact on the 2020 elections by supporting a Democratic Minnesota House candidate in a swing district. So I decided to take a closer look at the 134 House races.  

Below is an Excel file that lists the following data for each House seat:
·       Location in Greater Minnesota, Suburban, or Twin Cities
·       Current incumbent or open if the current incumbent is not running
·       First year the incumbent was elected
·       Opponent if one has been announced
·       Margin of victory in 2018 (obtained from the Minnesota Secretary of State website)

Here is a summary of what I found: 

# of Seats
Greater MN – 55  Suburban – 61  Twin Cities – 18  Total – 134
# of DFL
Greater MN – 18  Suburban – 39  Twin Cities – 18  Total – 75
# of GOP
Greater MN – 37  Suburban – 22  Twin Cities – 0  Total – 59

# of DFL with Opponent
Greater MN – 7  Suburban – 9  Twin Cities – 1  Total – 17
# of GOP with Opponent
Greater MN – 12  Suburban – 14 Twin Cities – 0  Total – 26 

# of DFL with margin under 10%
Greater MN – 2  Suburban – 14  Twin Cities – 0  Total – 16
# of GOP with margin under 10%
Greater MN – 3  Suburban – 3  Twin Cities – 0  Total – 6

# of DFL with margin 10-15%
Greater MN – 2  Suburban – 2  Twin Cities – 0  Total – 4
# of GOP with margin 10-15%
Greater MN – 3  Suburban – 5  Twin Cities – 0  Total – 8

 Three quick comments:

• Incumbent DFL Representatives in 60A, 66A, and 66B are being challenged in the primary.
• The DFL has to be concerned that 16 DFL representatives won by a less-than 10% margin versus only six for the GOP.
• On the other hand, the DFL has to be encouraged that they are running opponents in 44% of the GOP-controlled seats, while the GOP is doing so in only 23% of the DFL-controlled seats. 

Below is the spreadsheet sorted by district. If you want to sort by a different column, please open the spreadsheet by clicking on the two square boxes in the bottom right corner.

Hope you find this interesting and useful.