Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

[amiller92]

Lisa Bender is the most powerful person in the city as Council President. I don't live in her Ward...I can't vote her out if she were running for re-election. Seems like our current system is quite undemocratic. The Charter Commission is the Judicial Branch of the Government and is doing it's proper job of balancing the other two branches. Go read Rousseau if you want to learn more about the balance of powers.

The courts are the judicial branch. The charter commission is... a standing committee on constitutional amendments, I guess. Were I designing a government that is meant to function, I wouldn't include one unless it was strongly checked by the elected representatives, because on its own, it has zero democratic legitimacy.

[twincitizen]

I've been thinking, the best case for Frey's campaign is for Nezhad to finish ahead of Knuth. Nezhad voters seem less likely to rank Frey (2nd, 3rd, or at all) than Knuth voters. Some percentage of Knuth voters likely aren't die-hard "Don't Rank Frey" people, even if they'd prefer Kate to be Mayor over Frey. I'd also guess many of those Knuth voters aren't as comfortable voting for an unknown/inexperienced activist. Whereas I perceive Nezhad-1st voters are more likely than Knuth-1st to be "Don't-Rank-Frey"/blow-it-all-up types. While more Knuth-1st voters will rank Nezhad-2nd than Frey-2nd, I don't think that split will be worse for Frey than 60/40. Those votes will push Frey over 50% (of unexhausted ballots) and will hand him the victory.

As a reminder, the final tabulation round is when there are two candidates left. So let's say the polling is correct and Knuth trails Nezhad, and Knuth is eliminated in the 2nd-to-last round. People who ranked Knuth 1st (and Frey or Nezhad 2nd) will have their votes redistributed to their 2nd choice candidate. But the 2nd-choice votes of Nezhad-1st voters will never matter, as they stay with Nezhad in that final round of tabulation.

tl;dr - your 2nd and 3rd choice votes only matter if your 1st-choice candidate finishes lower than 2nd place. My (possibly wrong) perception of how people think about ranked-choice voting has me thinking that a lot of people don't realize that.

[MNdible]

Yeah, that's consistent with my thinking. I think the other unknown is how many voters either don't rank the full three candidates, or how many votes go to candidates outside of the top three -- in other words, how many ballots will be exhausted by the time we get down to two left. I think that there's a scenario where Frey could win with both Nezhad and Knuth still in the race, but all other candidates eliminated.

[twincitizen]

Oh I suppose you're right about that. If Frey tops 40% in the first round, and if enough voters (~10% of the total) rank Clint Conner (lol) or AJ Awed first, with Frey ranked 2nd/3rd on their ballots, he'd win before Knuth is eliminated. But I think that's pretty unlikely and he'll need Knuth's voters to top 50% of unexhausted ballots.

Looking back at 2017, it's shocking how many exhausted ballots there were (22,835 or 21.8% of all ballots), in a race that had five serious candidates each earning >15% of first-choice votes (Frey-Dehn-Hodges-Hoch-Levy). Dehn finishing ahead of Hodges was a shocker, so some of that ballot exhaustion could be explained as people who voted Hodges-Levy or Levy-Hodges (and Hoch or nobody 3rd). But even if you back up one round to when Hodges was still in it, there were already 10,921 or 10.4% of ballots exhausted. Meaning over 10% of voters did not rank any of Frey, Hodges, or Dehn. 2.5% of all voters didn't rank ANY of the top 5. Effing clown show.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Minn ... l_election

Ballot exhaustion shouldn't be as bad this year, with there being a clear top 3 contenders instead of a murkier top 5. If Minneapolis would allow voters to rank 5 candidates (like St. Paul does) instead of just 3, that might lower the exhaustion rate, but would not eliminate it entirely as there will always be a chunk of the electorate (10%?) that will never rank more than one candidate.

[Blaisdell Greenway]

One thing I would like to see come from this election (besides campaign finance reform/actual enforcement of existing laws) is an expansion of Ranked Choice from 3 to 5 rankings. I'm not sure if that's through ordinance or something else.

I'd also like Minneapolis to look at more forms of ranked choice beyond single transferrable vote. I think there are better ways to more accurately capture the will of the electorate. St. Louis did approval voting which seemed to work well, but that still required 2 elections. Removing the primary is a big selling point of RCV.

[MNdible]

The biggest problem is that we still have way too many candidates on the ballot (especially for the mayoral race). Are we really expecting people to rank five candidates? Sometimes too much democracy isn't a good thing.

The other thing we need to fix is the ridiculous way that Ranked Choice works for races with more than one winner (eg. Park Board At Large). That's truly mind-bending.

[Blaisdell Greenway]

Too many candidates is partially why I think increasing ranking from 3 to 5 options is a good idea. If RCV is about voting your heart first and head second, only giving three options sort of defeats that purpose. For this year with maybe 3-4 "viable" mayoral candidates out of 17, having only 3 spots prevents rewarding candidates you think deserve a vote even if you have an inkling they won't win.

100% agree with you on the multiseat races. Single transferrable vote just doesn't make intuitive sense or work well. Not sure what the right solution is, but seems like an opportunity for approval voting.

[NickP]

What is approval voting?

[Blaisdell Greenway]

The short answer is approval voting means you can vote for as many people you like. So you are voting equally for multiple people instead of ranking one above another. This seemed to work for St. Louis mayoral elections, but they still had two elections - an approval vote primary and a two-candidate general. Fargo has approval voting as well and it looks like Utah is considering it - https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/letters/ ... ne-ranked/

FairVote, which champions RCV, doesn't like it - https://www.fairvote.org/electoral_syst ... val_voting. Meanwhile, the Center For Election Science (haven't heard of this group before googling today) says it's great - https://electionscience.org/library/app ... ersus-irv/

I think the idea of approval voting works more for the multi-seat races. In current practice, you only get one "first choice" despite there being three at-large park board seats (or two board of estimate), which seems unfair. Say you like 4 of the people running for 3 park board seats, under approval voting you could vote for all four and the top three vote getters citywide would win.

We've had RCV long enough that it's time to start expanding the conversation about what's possible. Maybe we come up with some tweaks, maybe some new stuff is implemented or not, who knows. But at least it would be a conversation about expanding democratic access separate from the highly political (duh) individual races/candidates that currently drive elections.

[John21]

I’m probably voting for Kate but I don’t know what to rank after that.

[thespeedmccool]

I think Sheila's a clown TBH. I hate to say it, but I'd rank Knuth first, Frey second, and just not rank Nezhad. I want someone more progressive than Jacob, but I also frankly want to protect against Sheila. It's too bad that progressives have coalesced their first choice around Nezhad and not Knuth.

I'm of the opinion that a lot of Frey's shadiness is election-related and that he'll be more cooperative after the election. Maybe I'll be eating my words. Really sucks strong mayor is probably gonna pass.

2021 Minneapolis politics is pretty depressing.

[Blaisdell Greenway]

What makes you say Sheila is a clown? Have you actually read her website? She has a masters degree in policy from the Humphrey, just like Kate...

People trust Naomi Kritzer, who actually interviewed both Sheila and Kate for her piece. https://naomikritzer.com/2021/10/29/ele ... ila-jacob/

[Didier]

My official prediction: Strong mayor, yes on public safety and rent control, and Frey.

This election is filled with contradictions and, frankly, no great mayoral candidates. I'd be surprised to see public safety pass, *and* a fairly unknown progressive activist elected to oversee it. However, I also wouldn't be terribly surprised to see public safety lose soundly. It's been such a poorly executed effort.

[thespeedmccool]

What makes you say Sheila is a clown? Have you actually read her website? She has a masters degree in policy from the Humphrey, just like Kate...

People trust Naomi Kritzer, who actually interviewed both Sheila and Kate for her piece. https://naomikritzer.com/2021/10/29/ele ... ila-jacob/

I actually read that piece this morning. It's exactly why I think Sheila is trouble.

Vis-à-vis Knuth, Nezhad is less analytical, more abolitionist, supports "participatory budgeting" (which sounds like a terrible idea to me,) more restrictive on rent control, less open to development, supports "hot food and bathrooms to those who are protesting state violence," and has less legislative background. All around, I feel like Nezhad leans on "communal logic" or "common sense" whereas I tend to believe the masses don't know what they want and that most people would make for bad governors. I get the feeling Nezhad used to show up to neighborhood meetings to advocate against apartment projects on accusations of gentrification.

I'm not so concerned with the line items of her policy proposals (though some I object to pretty vehemently) so much as her disposition. She's a brand of leftist I find difficult to understand and cannot subscribe to: too touchy-feely, emotion-over-logic, compassion toward arsonists, etc. Knuth, in this respect, seems far more temperamentally suited for the job. I cannot stand it when leftism gets so bogged down in "centering the conversation" and "feeling out the answer," and I get the impression Nezhad is much more in that camp than I could tolerate.

I haven't done a good job articulating my thoughts, and "clown" is probably too harsh a word. But as we've seen with Frey, I think there's a risk that Nezhad would be less-than-able to handle a crisis due to her disposition.

[Blaisdell Greenway]

All fine and valid points based on intuition, just absolutely not true. As I said Sheila literally has a degree from the Humphrey and has held a prestigious fellowship in policy analysis at UCLA, plus has run statewide health policy research projects. Her bachelors degree is in economics! Also her recent "activism" is almost entirely around the city budget, and I guarantee she understands the budget more than Jacob, who famously does not care about daily governance.

Participatory budgeting is also a specific thing with a lot of history, not just something she magically made up. She was president of the Lyndale neighborhood for a term and pro-apartment when they came through. Also she is trained street medic and was dealing with people who the cops seriously injured during the uprising. That strikes me as way more suited to a crisis response than any of the others. While my neighborhood was on fire, Jacob's response to a reporter's question "what is the plan?" was "in regards to what?" That tells me everything I need to know.

I do appreciate your response to my question drawing out your thoughts. I'm not really trying to convince you or anyone to vote for her because I don't think posting on a forum is how you can do that, but I do find frustrating how much people are just making things up to suit their priors (that's how most voters make up their mind anyway, that's life). Part of why I posted the Kritzer link is she described Sheila's disposition as "warm" yet people insist the opposite. Anyway, back to work.

[thespeedmccool]

All fine and valid points based on intuition, just absolutely not true. As I said Sheila literally has a degree from the Humphrey and has held a prestigious fellowship in policy analysis at UCLA, plus has run statewide health policy research projects. Her bachelors degree is in economics! Also her recent "activism" is almost entirely around the city budget, and I guarantee she understands the budget more than Jacob, who famously does not care about daily governance.

Participatory budgeting is also a specific thing with a lot of history, not just something she magically made up. She was president of the Lyndale neighborhood for a term and pro-apartment when they came through. Also she is trained street medic and was dealing with people who the cops seriously injured during the uprising. That strikes me as way more suited to a crisis response than any of the others. While my neighborhood was on fire, Jacob's response to a reporter's question "what is the plan?" was "in regards to what?" That tells me everything I need to know.

I do appreciate your response to my question drawing out your thoughts. I'm not really trying to convince you or anyone to vote for her because I don't think posting on a forum is how you can do that, but I do find frustrating how much people are just making things up to suit their priors (that's how most voters make up their mind anyway, that's life). Part of why I posted the Kritzer link is she described Sheila's disposition as "warm" yet people insist the opposite. Anyway, back to work.

I want to be clear that I'm not questioning her intelligence or capability, but simply Nezhad's attitude toward governance.

To extend the analogy, I actually prefer my politicians be principled but "cold." There's such a thing as overresponsiveness to resident emotions, and I feel Nezhad is more likely to acquiesce to underinformed voters with unwarranted concerns for the sake of being "warm" and acknowledging misplaced passion. I just watched a neighborhood meeting in Woodbury where the (spineless) city council backed down from narrowing the streets in a neighborhood because residents didn't believe narrow streets reduced speeding and crashes; sometimes, politicians and experts know more than residents, and I worry Nezhad would be overly responsive to concerns of progressive but underinformed allies.

I am also deeply opposed to her attitude as it relates to "state violence." I'm very much of the mind that abolition is a step too far because the state must have means to respond to citizen violence. I think of January 6th and how a few thousand Trumpers were nearly able to topple the democratic process because the police were wholly ineffective. It's more of a philosophical point, but an important one. She's running to be mayor, and part of that job (in my opinion) is maintaining a police force that can respond to violence; I do not believe she's committed to doing so. There's a whole section on her page committed to "stopping state violence" and while I agree with some of the line items, it misses the broader point: the state must use violence or others will. There is no such thing as a "non-violent state." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence

For context, I support question 2 to rein in the police, but not full abolition. Nezhad, I fear, quietly supports abolition and I think that's a disaster waiting to happen.

I'm happy we can have respectful conversations about this stuff on this forum. Ultimately, Nezhad would probably be an average mayor, but I have my sorta meta-concerns nonetheless.

[twincitizen]

My official prediction: Strong mayor, yes on public safety and rent control, and Frey.

This election is filled with contradictions and, frankly, no great mayoral candidates.

I think darn near everyone would agree with that, unless you're totally won over by Kate or Sheila. Jacob Frey is Hillary Clinton. A lot of people are going to vote for him ambivalently or even reluctantly because the other candidates are too fringe-y or inexperienced, not because they enthusiastically support him.

Where are the small business owners who want to be Mayor? A hypothetical Black business owner, lawyer, corporate professional, or whatever, with basically identical normie-progressive DFLer politics as Jacob could have done very well in this election (provided they had some pre-existing connections/involvement with the DFL or labor). There was absolutely a lane available to someone who isn't Jacob to run as a mainstream progressive who opposes the amendment but supports reform.

Where's the Melvin Carter of Minneapolis, the hometown kid made good, loved by nearly all? I will say, it is definitely weird how much hate Frey gets while basically occupying the exact same political positions as Carter. That tells me people despise Frey for his corny/annoying persona and background more than his actual politics. That or everyone on Twitter has actually lost their minds and think Jacob is truly this arch-conservative cartoon villain.

[Carlos]

I think you are prolly right that Frey drew more open dislike due to his persona versus his political positions pre-2020 but I feel like he revealed himself to be much worse than Melvin Carter in the aftermath of the unrest. If a mayor who has complete control of the police doesn't stop police brutality on peaceful protesters or journalists that is truly damning evidence of their competence and lack of commitment to accountability. For over a year he hasn't made any police accountable for their criminal actions and made it less transparent on discipline matters all because he wants to be re-elected. Perhaps he's not an arch-conservative cartoon villain but some of his actions have been downright villainous. But again, I would agree with people's predictions, from what I am hearing most people are going to unenthusiastically rank Frey either 1 or 2 and he will cruise to a 2nd term.

[Didier]

I was thinking about this earlier, and Frey actually reminds me a lot of Justin Trudeau. Both came on as these fresh, young, charismatic faces, but their reputations took a hit and now they're just kind of trudging along by default.

I thought Frey was a pretty good mayor for a healthy Minneapolis, but not a good mayor for a city in crisis. Thinking back to the days just after the 2020 riots, at some point Tim Walz started showing up at press conferences with Frey and Carter, and it had the feel of the dad arriving to bail out the two kids. In retrospect Walz might not have been the steadiest hand himself, but that's beside the point. I feel like Frey still comes off too much like the kid who's in over his head. Like twincitizen said, there felt like an opening for a more mainstream Black candidate to come in. Someone who could have a lot more credibility in addressing the city's racial problems but without being connected to the abolishment stuff.

I also wonder what the dynamics would have been like if there was a more known quantity running in the progressive lane, like Nekima Levy Armstrong again. Or honestly even Jeremiah Ellison. Not saying he'd be a great mayor, but usually the top couple contenders are much better defined by now than Nezhad and Knuth are.

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see what happens.

[mplsjaromir]

Frey actually reminds me a lot of Justin Trudeau.

I would not be surprised to learn Frey did a ton of blackface over the years.