Suburban Districts Expected to Determine Control of MN House

Some legislative districts on the fringe of the metro are battleground districts and could determine political control of the Minnesota House. Political experts say voters in these districts could have considerable influence in state politics.

“Still technically, it’s only one person, one vote, but effectively a lot more influence,” explained political science professor David Schultz.  “For people who live in these purplish areas, within Plymouth and places like that, the voters in some sense even though they have one vote, their vote has far more importance than say a district in the middle of St. Paul which is heavily Democratic or a district in greater Minnesota, which is Republican.”

Races to watch include Hillen vs. Westlin in Senate District 42 and the House races for 42A, 42B.

“The best calculation is we are probably down to only 10 seats out of only 134 that are really going to determine the control of the state legislature and you have several seats just in your area that potentially could really determine the partisan control of the House of Representatives,” said Schultz. “If we think of that, whichever party controls the house, determines the speaker of the house and arguably the speaker of the House is the second most powerful position in the state.”

Currently the speaker of the House is Melissa Hortman, a DFL member from Brooklyn Park.

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