Primaries coming up - any thoughts?

[dreamshark]

In Hennepin County, where I live, the primary races are crucial. It's mostly a one-party county, so whoever wins the DFL primary wins the election. In many races the whole primary is a sham, with essentially one candidate backed by party leaders (my city council race, for instance). But there seem to be some real contests going on in a few races, and I have very little information about any of them. 

There are open seats for two key figures in local law enforcement: Hennepin County Attorney and Hennepin County Sheriff, and I don't quite understand why there is so little news coverage of these crucial races. At first glance, all the major candidates for sheriff seem impressive in one way or another, and I don't have a favorite. Not sure what's going on with County Attorney except that to everybody's relief, the current occupant of the office is stepping down. Mary Moriarty and Ryan Winkler seem to be the two leaders, with Moriarty narrowly securing the DFL endorsement. Moriarty has had a long history as a public defender. I'm not sure how I feel about that. The system needs both public defenders and prosecutors, but can you just switch horses in midstream like that and still be effective in the new role? Winkler currently represents a suburban district in the Minnesota House, which probably puts him a little to the right of Moriarty, but he has an unexpected history of supporting cannabis legalization. Again, both candidates seem impressive, but I haven't tried to delve into their differences.    

There is also a credible opponent to Ilhan Omar for 5th Congressional District, although probably a long shot: Don Samuels. He doesn't seem to have a big war chest, but he has a long resume as north side resident, entrepreneur, grassroots community organizer, and former city council member. He is definitely worth a look if you're not crazy about Omar's contentious style. Even if you are a staunch supporter of the incumbent you might want to read Don Samuels' story. He is someone I have long admired. I doubt he can primary a popular incumbent, but I'm pleased to have a chance to vote for him. 

Hennepin residents, are there other interesting races I've missed? Any thoughts on the candidates? What about statewide races: anything interesting? Most of our statewide offices already have DFL incumbents in them, so I usually don't pay much attention to those.

Comments

[redbird]

You may already be reading these, but if not, I recommend Naomi Kritzer's election posts: https://naomikritzer.com/

[dreamshark]

Thanks. I love reading Naomi's analysis, but since she stopped posting on LiveJournal I never remember where to find her writing.

[pameladean]

You can get an email notification when she makes a new post.

P.

[sraun]

There's a feed from her blog to Dreamwidth. https://naomikritzer-feed.dreamwidth.org/

She just posted recently about the 5th District race and the Henneping County Attorney.

[dreamshark]

Huh. Other than multiple comments referring me to Naomi's blog, not one single response. Does that mean that nobody I know is even faintly interested in local politics, or that nobody wants to talk about politics in public, even in the most general terms?

Thanks, Scott, for the link to Naomi's DW feed. I knew her blog was out there somewhere but was unaware of the feed, which I have now added.

[arkuat]

I was inclined to vote for Sonya Emerick (a non-DFL-endorsed candidate for one of the two at-large school board seats) when I was doing my own research, and was intrigued to see that Naomi had endorsed her when she started writing up the primary election. I will probably vote for her.

I'm pretty annoyed at Shaun Laden's decision to primary state senator Omar Fateh. Fateh has been doing a great job and has been a focus of attack from outstate Republicans lately, and Laden's decision seems opportunistic and bad for the local party. I'll definitely be voting for Fateh.

I'm happy with the endorsements of Dawanna Witt and Mary Moriarty and plan to vote for them. Not sure I understand your hesitation about defense lawyers becoming prosecutors (or vice versa): the law is the same on both sides, and working both sides is excellent preparation for judgeship.

In the crowd I run with, Don Samuels is not a guy anyone wants to vote for. I'm surprised that you're unfamiliar with the many awful stories from his long and checkered past.

[davidschroth]

I have mostly been waiting for Ms Kritzer to post something, so I can then see if I agree or disagree with her recommendations.

That said, at the moment there are a couple of races that I will most likely abstain from voting for anyone in the primary - largely because I don't much care for any of the candidates running. I'll note that for me, the DFL endorsement sends a mixed message - the process for selecting a candidate for endorsement is in my experience not very successful in selecting candidates I can vote for, and in my opinion has inflicted much damage to Minneapolis.

[dreamshark]

The DFL endorsement process is certainly flawed, but that's all the more reason to vote in the primary. The DFL conventions do winnow the field (which is not entirely unhelpful) but certainly can't be counted on to identify the "best" DFL candidate.

Voting in the primary multiplies the power of your individual vote many times over, since most people don't participate. Actually attending the endorsing conventions gives you an even more outsize amount of power in selecting a candidate, but (as I believe you know) can be a soul-sucking endeavor. I haven't done so for many years. But I'm glad I did it a few times - it was enlightening. And I must say that during those years I ended up with a much better idea who the candidates were than I have ever had before or since.

[spiderplanet]

I like Ilhan Omar, and I'll continue to support anyone like her who can publicly say that housing is a human right. I'm not likely to vote for someone running against her, but I'm pretty sure I would feel the same about Mr. Samuels if we had a different incumbent.

I strongly oppose Don Samuels as a Congressman. I get two or three mailings per week from him. There's some aggressive dog-whistling about supporting cops, who are already accountable to no one, and over funded. Within "pro-cop" ideology, there are limits. Even though I disagree, I can tolerate a discussion about restructuring how policing works assuming there is admission that it is currently less than perfect. I am FAR too old to listen to any shit about continuing with business as usual, but with just giving cops more money to do whatever the fuck they want.