- Radical leftist Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (MN-05) barely survived a challenge from former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels. Omar took in 50.35% of the vote to Samuels' 48.2%, which translated to 2,466 votes.
Omar may have been ousted were it not for the futile campaign of MNGOP Attorney General candidate Doug Wardlow. After losing out on the party endorsement to Jim Schultz, Wardlow went back on his word by not abiding by the delegates' choice, thus going to a primary. Had Schultz not had a primary challenger, many of the usual GOP voters in CD5 would have voted in the DFL primary given that the US House race there is essentially the general election. And since 10,000 votes were cast in the GOP AG race in the Fifth CD (Wardlow himself took in 3,533), it's not hard to imagine that there would have been enough there to put Samuels over the top. As someone pointed out on Twitter, Wardlow has managed to extend the political careers of Keith Ellison (whom he lost to in the 2018 AG race thanks to a lackluster campaign) and Ilhan Omar. Heckuva legacy.
- The Republican Party of Minnesota successfully defended all its endorsed statewide candidates, though there wasn't much doubt outside of the AG race. However, the GOP race for AG turned out to have little mystery as Schulz prevailed over Wardlow by a nearly 18-point margin.
- Whether or not the GOP gains the majority in the MN House (need to flip only four seats), we can at least take heart in the fact DFLers Tinky Winky Ryan Winkler and John Thompson will not be returning.
Winkler (who once made a racist remark about a SCOTUS justice, flipped off a sitting MN Senator and falsely accused a truck driver of being a white supremacist) chose not to seek reelection for his House seat, instead opting to run for Hennepin County Attorney. He was not one of the top two vote getters in that race, so he does not advance to the general election.
Thompson, who was expelled from the DFL caucus after numerous infractions over a two year period, was handed a resounding defeat in the HD 67A DFL primary. The almost 78-point loss has to be the largest defeat an incumbent legislator has ever suffered.
It was almost exactly two years ago when Thompson and a group of other Black Lives Matter-MN activists ventured up to the Hugo home of then Minneapolis Police union chief Bob Kroll, where they staged a protest in the family's driveway. Among the despicable acts were Thompson (fresh off becoming the DFL candidate for his MN House seat) screaming obscenities toward teenage girls watching from next door. There were also piñatas of Kroll and his wife Liz Collin being hung and beaten in effigy. With that in mind, you can imagine how Collin reacted to the news of Thompson's defeat.
A piñata just might be in store to celebrate 🎉 https://t.co/ADuzGuFdQj
— Liz Collin (@lizcollin) August 10, 2022
BOOM!!!
On to November!
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