The Minnesota Republican Party seems to have allowed Democrats to run for four State House seats without a conservative challenger.
Districts 28A, 49A, and 60B are set to be won in 2020 by Democrats Gene Pelowski, Heather Edelson and Mohamud Noor respectively. District 59A will, in all likelihood, be represented by Democrat Fue Lee, although he is challenged by a Grassroots Cannabis Party candidate.
All of the unchallenged Democrats are incumbents with strong liberal records. Edelson is affiliated with Bloomberg-funded gun control group “Moms Demand Action,” and Noor wants to bar law enforcement and the Federal Government from taking action against illegal aliens in Minnesota.
On Tuesday night, it appeared that 11 other Democrats would also go unchallenged, however, the State Secretary of State’s office has since processed more filing forms, reducing that number to the five that are clearly unchallenged as of Wednesday. Meanwhile, only one Republican is set to run for a State House seat totally unopposed while another is set to campaign against only a Marijuana party candidate.
Meanwhile, a stalwart Minnesota conservative, Jeremy Munson, is faced with a Republican primary challenger. Jake Duesenberg, the President of Action4Liberty, criticized this in an interview with Alpha News.
“[Republican House Minority Leader] Daudt had time to find a primary challenger for the most conservative Republican in the House, Jeremy Munson, but not time find someone in Edina” which is District 49A, he said.
The lack of Republican opposition to state level Democrats seems to be the result of party disorganization. “Daudt certainly failed at recruiting and so did the GOP,” Duesenberg remarked.
Even though there’s only a small chance that Republicans would win the solidly liberal unchallenged districts, Duesenberg points out that it’s still important to put candidates on the ballots in order to force the Democrats to expend valuable resources campaigning. Without a challenger, the unopposed candidates will likely “go doorknock the suburbs and help out the other Democrats.”
Although the possibility exists that the four unopposed Democrats will eventually be slated to run against a challenger as the Secretary of State processes more filing forms, it appears that this process is nearing completion. This article will be updated if the situation changes. However, the very fact that Republican voters are left wondering if they’ll have a candidate to vote for in their district is reason enough for many to level criticism against the state party.
The current situation is the result of “pretty major oversights in terms of the Republican party,” which is “not very organized” says Duesenberg.
“You gotta get your candidates, and it seems like they [the party] failed on that one,” he concluded.
Kyle Hooten
Kyle Hooten is Managing Editor of Alpha News. His coverage of Minneapolis has been featured on television shows like Tucker Carlson Tonight and in print media outlets like the Wall Street Journal.
