ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A special election in a Minnesota House district at the center of a post-election drama to control the chamber will decide whether control will be tied between Democrats and Republicans, or if the GOP locks in a narrow but workable majority.
The election in heavily Democratic House District 40B in the northern St. Paul suburbs of Roseville and Shoreview was scheduled after a state court ruled that Democratic state Rep.-elect Curtis Johnson failed to meet residency requirements. That disrupted an expected 67-67 tie in the House and led to the collapse of a power-sharing agreement between the two parties after Republicans decided to capitalize on their unexpected majority, prompting a three-week Democratic boycott of the chamber.
The election pits Democrat David Gottfried against Republican Paul Wikstrom, who also ran for the seat in 2024 and had challenged Johnson’s residency status in court.
The parties reached a new power-sharing agreement in February that assumed Democrats would win the special election and restore the 67-67 tie. Under the terms of the deal, Republican Lisa Demuth will remain House speaker for the next two years. If Gottfried wins, the two parties will have even strength on most committees, except for an oversight committee that Republicans will control to investigate fraud in government programs.
Democrats hold a one-seat majority in the Minnesota Senate. Given the tie in the House, where 68 votes are needed to pass most bills, some degree of bipartisan cooperation will be required to pass the big budget measures during the 2025 session and get them to Democratic Gov. Tim Walz for his signature. Updated budget projections released last Thursday suggested difficult negotiations ahead. The projected surplus for the next two-year budget slipped to $456 million, while the projected deficit for the two years after that grew to $6 billion.
As indicators of Democratic strength in the district, the ineligible Johnson received 65% of the vote in November, compared to about 35% for Wikstrom. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris carried the district with 68% of the vote, far better than the 51% she received statewide in her national loss to President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.
While Democrats had the “trifecta” of control over both chambers and the governor’s office in 2023 and 2024, GOP gains in the November elections returned the state to divided government, which has been the norm for most of the past three decades.
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