Minnesota stunner: State GOP wins both House and Senate

A stunner: State GOP wins both House and Senate

Minneapolis Star Tribune
November 3, 2010

In a stunning victory, Republicans swept into the majority in the Minnesota Senate for the first time in more than a generation and by early Wednesday had followed that by also taking control of the House.

The dual victories left many of the state's top DFLers speechless, and erased months of optimistic projections that the party would buck a nationwide trend toward Republicans. Even Republicans, who gained confidence with each passing hour as key races broke their way, said the results exceeded even their giddiest predictions.

"I would have seen this as the outer edge of the band I would have thought of," Sen. Geoff Michel, R-Edina, said as Republicans inched early Wednesday toward control of the Senate, which the party has not held since the early 1970s. "There's no doubt we were outgunned, and outspent."

"It's unbelievable," said state Sen. Dick Cohen, DFL-St. Paul, reacting sourly to the results of the legislative races. "Just an unbelievable night."

The Republican takeover threw decades of Minnesota politics on its head - and in one night reversed a landscape where the Republicans held the governor's office and the DFL comfortably controlled the Legislature.

The Republicans' gains in the House were no less impressive, wiping out an 87 to 47 DFL majority that even strategists within the Republican Party said was likely out of reach. The mounting losses throughout the evening dazed DFLers, who felt optimistic that DFLer Mark Dayton's gubernatorial prospects would translate to victory in the Legislature.

At 3 in the morning, a tired but happy House Minority Leader Kurt Zellers claimed victory.

"This is an important, critical time in our state's landscape," he said. "We're going to get to work. This is about getting the state's economy back on track, [getting] people back to work and [getting] Minnesota back to being pro-business again.

"It's a good, good night in Minnesota," said Zellers, who said he accepted an early morning congratulatory call from DFL House Majority Leader Tony Sertich. Although the results were not final, Zellers said, Republicans had picked up at least 23 seats in the House.

Senate Minority Leader David Senjem, speaking of the Republicans' other ground shaking win, said taking control of the Minnesota Senate was an "historic moment for our party and for our state."

The loss was particularly crippling for Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller, who had served in the Senate since 1982 and for the first time in his political career will work as a member of the DFL minority. Going into Tuesday's elections, DFLers had held a decisive 46 to 21 majority, a margin most party strategists thought was insurmountable. "We're going to lead this state," said Senjem. "We're going to tackle the issues of jobs and the economy first. That doesn't mean that other issues take the back burner, but jobs and the economy have to come first to get us to a new prosperity."

As early returns came in during the evening, DFLers in both Houses found themselves on their heels. Rosemount City Council member Kurt Bills scored the party's first significant victory with a win over Rep. Phil Sterner, DFL-Rosemount, a first-term legislator. Republicans soon followed with another notable victory as another first-termer, Rep. Paul Rosenthal, DFL-Edina, who was heavily targeted by his opponents, lost to Republican Pat Mazorol.

"I think it boils down to the economy," said Bills, a high school economics teacher. Voters, he said, were watching their personal spending and "want the government to watch their debt as well." In many neighborhoods, where Bills said he door knocked as many as four times, "it was jobs, [the] economy, debt and taxes."

In the Senate, the DFL's losses included longtime incumbent Sen. Don Betzold, DFL-Fridley, a five-term senator and chair of the Senate state government budget panel, and Sen. Leo Foley, DFL-Coon Rapids, a four-term state senator. Even DFLer Barb Goodwin, who during the summer wrestled the party's endorsement away from controversial Sen. Satveer Chaudhary, DFL-Fridley, had to work hard to claim victory over her Republican opponent, Gina Bauman, a New Brighton city council member.

One by one, most of the Senate's other close races fell to the Republicans. In Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty's district, Sen. Jim Carlson, DFL-Eagan, lost to Ted Daley, a West Point graduate who served twice in Iraq. Sen. Kathy Saltzman, DFL-Woodbury, also lost. Carlson and Saltzman were two of 17 Senate DFLers who were seeking re-election for the first time -- a phenomenon that Republicans were hoping to exploit.

Soon after the seeing the Senate majority slip through his fingers, Pogemiller said he called to congratulate Senjem. "A lot of very good state senators were defeated this evening," Pogemiller said. "The national mood, [the] anti-incumbent mood, spoke loudly in Minnesota."

Pogemiller said many of the DFLers who lost their seats Tuesday told him that "by and large there's nothing more they could have done," and he said that independent voters who had previously sided with DFLers "clearly made another choice this evening." He deflected questions about whether DFLers would blame him for the party's losses, and said he did not think that having a DFL governor (if Dayton won) and a Republican legislature would lead to a new form of political gridlock at the State Capitol.

As the evening wore on, Republicans were increasingly optimistic about their chances in the House, where the path to victory was initially seen as steep. "It's going to be very, very close," Rep. Matt Dean, R-Dellwood, said of the Republicans' chances of winning a majority in the House. "The races that we were targeting we either won by a significant amount, or are close."

In the House, Republicans successfully targeted Rep. Al Doty, DFL-Royalton, a retired educator finishing his second term. Doty, like many DFLers, said they were confident of their chances in the days before Tuesday's election. "I know people who try to create a bandwagon effect talk about this being a huge Republican sweep that's coming -- it's not. It's just not there," said Doty.

Through the weekend, as Republicans talked of a late surge of support, party officials talked openly of winning control of the Senate. At a campaign rally Saturday, Michel wore a smile and wielded an imaginary gavel as Republicans talked of him chairing a committee should the party win the Senate majority.

Annette Meeks, Emmer's running mate, drew loud applause at another rally by saying that Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller might literally lose his State Capitol office. "Picture Larry Pogemiller [and the DFLers] carrying their boxes of belongings across the street" to the minority party office, she said.

As the Republicans began to speak more boldly, both Pogemiller and House Majority Leader Tony Sertich had spent the past week expressing confidence that they would retain their majorities. "We're optimistic," Pogemiller said in the campaign's waning days.

Fueling the optimism were fundraising figures that clearly tilted toward the DFLers, but did not take into account the substantial influence of independent expenditures. While the Senate DFL Caucus had raised $1.9 million, according to campaign reports filed last week, Senate Republicans raised less than $467,000.

Democrats are crying a river here in Minnesota today. Everything I'm reading on blogs is total disbelief by them here in Minnesota. Then we have a statewide recount getting ready for the governorship here because the vote was that close.

I'm really enjoying this day today. Here's nothing better than to see this country bitch-slap these big government liberals.

GOP coming out swinging on recount

Bob von Sternberg
Minneapolis Star Tribune
November 3, 2010

Right out of the gate, Minnesota's Republicans are being far more aggressive about the likely recount in the governor's race than they were during the 2008 U.S. Senate recount that elected Democrat Al Franken.

Stopping just short of alleging voter fraud on Tuesday, they said they won't be "rolled" -- in the words of Chairman Tony Sutton -- as they believe they were two years ago.

Sutton is raising questions about the integrity of the election, especially in Hennepin County. Sutton says it doesn't "smell right" that the GOP took both state Houses and knocked off Rep. Jim Oberstar but didn't win the governorship.

Sutton said the GOP "won't get out-lawyered" in a recount that appears to be mandatory under state law because Mark Dayton's lead of about 9,000 votes over Tom Emmer is less that one-half of 1 percent of the total votes cast.

Emmer said he's preparing for a recount to ensure "all valid votes are counted and the will of the voters is met," calling the race "too close to call."

Dayton hasn't addressed the prospects of a recount.