Hennepin County Attorney election

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So this is probably actually the most interesting race I'll have on my ballot this year.

As I covered here incumbent Mike Freeman will not see re-election after a rather embarrassing last term. He probably wouldn't have anyway considering that he's kind of old, but he really managed to botch his legacy.

The election is nonpartisan and done French-style, the "primary" is basically just a first round anyone can vote in and then the top two do a runoff in November. I was a bit worried about a Seattle-like situation where some loon makes the runoff against a Republican, but thankfully no one as out there as Nicole Thomas-Kennedy or surprisingly even a Republican has filed to run. In fact all of the candidates seem like a step up above Freeman, although that's not really saying much. Last election Freeman ended up facing a DFL-endorsed progressive challenger, the first election where he was ever denied the DFL endorsement (and he had five previous elections, he served for two terms before Amy Klobuchar and has held the job since she went to the Senate), but still managed to win the runoff, (if you're an election data nerd you can find some very amusing patterns in some of the heavily Republican precincts in the exurbs, it appears a lot of Republicans hate him so much they were willing to vote for someone far to his left, or they simply didn't know, LOL.)

Anyway the candidates:

Ryan Winkler
I'll have to call him the initial frontrunner. Winkler is the Assistant House Majority Leader and has drawn a lot of support for being the chief advocate for marijuana legalization in the Legislature. His platform is kind of interesting, he has a lot of progressive planks like completely deprioritizing drug and public order crimes, holding police accountable and trying to reform and move away from cash bail, but he also promises to be pretty "tough on crime" in regards to violent crime especially carjackings and against sexual predators. Winkler is also relatively young and thus could hold the position for quite awhile or even use it as a launching pad for statewide office later which many are suspecting. The biggest criticism of him I've heard is that he has no experience either in a prosecutor's office or working in defense, his pre-political career was mostly just corporate consulting gigs, and he has a bit of an odd Legislative history, he was first elected in 2006 at the age of 30, and served until resigning in 2015 because his wife accepted a job overseas and he moved with her (his replacement was none other than now Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan), only to move back after his wife took a new job back in Minnesota and run for his old seat in 2018, won and then immediately was promoted to Assistant Majority Leader. Not really a knock against him in my view since all his actions were understandable but an unusual pattern.

Regardless I think he's the definite frontrunner, he has the most name recognition and support from all corners of the DFL and insider types. He has quite a few endorsements from local politicians as well as a bunch of unions, including a firefighters one and the head of Minnesota's branch of NORML.

Mary Moriarty
A career public defender, she's trying to be the "progressive" in the race and actually announced her run even before Freeman announced he was standing down. However her platform and sites are actually kind of thin...she only talks about her experience but not what she intends to do if she were to win, she has an impressive record and is trying to take credit for effectively ending any enforcement against low level marijuana possession in Hennepin County after his office exposed the extreme racial disparities in arrests. She does notably have the endorsement of Nekima Levy Armstrong, a promient local civil rights leader (former head of the Minnesota NAACP and mayoral candidate in 2017 effectively running as the BLM candidate, although she's been criticized for becoming more "establishment" since then, she endorsed Ilhan Omar's primary opponent in 2020 and in 2021 actually endorsed Jacob Frey for re-election and opposed the failed police reform measure Q2), and a smattering of state legislators and city councilors who seem to be mostly generic D types.

Saraswati Singh
Current Assistant County Attorney for Ramsey County, despite being a Hennepin County resident, Singh is quite close to Ramsey County Attorney John Choi who has a strong reputation as a Larry Krasner-like progressive reformer.  She has the endorsement of Choi and a couple state legislators. As for her platform, it's probably the most woke of all the candidates although that's really just rhetoric-based, and she actually makes the interesting argument for stricter prosecution of violent crimes because they disproportionately harm people of color, also promising more police accountability, expanding restorative justice programs and treatment courts, and promising bail reform and an "update" to drug charging policies but doesn't really provide any details to what that entail. Wokies on social media and local forums also seem to be rallying behind her because she's the only fully non-white candidate (Trautmann, the next guy covered is half-Puerto Rican), which obviously I don't care about, but I find her background and platform overall pretty solid, albeit a bit thin.

Simon Trautmann
Current member of the Richfield City Council, and also heads his own business law-oriented law firm. In some ways it almost seems like he was created in a lab to appeal to me, he's a devoted evangelical Christian and also serves on the boards for various non-profits working with things like transitioning people out of prison and for general reform, was a leader in Richfield for pushing for new laws on things like allowing for easier expungement of past offenses and cracking down on wage theft, and has been active in outreach work like actually traveling to Somalia to assist with famine relief efforts there after being asked for help by some of the Somali community to help establish a non-profit to bring attention to the famine there, he was heavily active in planning the funeral of George Floyd as well as peaceful protest efforts and cleanup and rebuilding efforts. His platform is also kind of standard progressive planks most of the others have and similar to Singh, shifting prosecution resources to violent crime, more restorative justice programs, more police accountability, but also brings attention to actual bail reform proposals (he wants a more income-based system), making expungement easier, and setting up a new network to crack down on wage theft. All in all I'd say he probably currently has my vote, although I don't think he has much of a chance, Richfield City Council isn't a particularly prominent office and he has lacks the name recognition and connection of the others, and has no notable endorsements to brag about on his site.

Paul Ostrow
I can't say too much about this guy to be honest other than that he's a former Minneapolis City Councilman from NE Minneapolis and that he ran for House in 2006 and came in 4th in the DFL primary (the same year Keith Ellison was first elected), he announced his candidacy relatively recently and the only web presence I can find is that he appears to now be an Assistant County Attorney for Anoka County...that's it. Kind of strikes me as one of those guys who basically runs for office with the same sort of attitude people have running for office in Atlasia.

Anyway as said my current vote would go to Trautmann, but I fully expect Winkler to win, and frankly I'd be totally fine with him.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm probably for Singh now, I've met her at some DFL meetings and am pretty impressed.

[LAB-LIB]

Any relation to Orville?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Any relation to Orville?

If you're referring to Mike Freeman then yes, in fact that was his father. And the only reason he has his position or made it anywhere clearly with his level of competence.

[LAB-LIB]

Any relation to Orville?

If you're referring to Mike Freeman then yes, in fact that was his father. And the only reason he has his position or made it anywhere clearly with his level of competence.

Yes I was referring to Orville. So that means that the 1998 Democratic Primary for governor was a Humphery vs. a Mondale vs. a Freeman vs. a Dayton.

[Schiff for Senate]

Reading their names on the poll alone make my choice very clear. Singh, the Indian-American candidate in this race, has my support (don't really care for the policies/views much one way or another, I'm guessing they're not that different from generic D).

[Хahar 🤔]

She does notably have the endorsement of Nekima Levy Armstrong, a promient local civil rights leader (former head of the Minnesota NAACP and mayoral candidate in 2017 effectively running as the BLM candidate, although she's been criticized for becoming more "establishment" since then, she endorsed Ilhan Omar's primary opponent in 2020 and in 2021 actually endorsed Jacob Frey for re-election and opposed the failed police reform measure Q2), and a smattering of state legislators and city councilors who seem to be mostly generic D types.

She used to be Nekima Levy-Pounds, right? Obviously the people I'm friends with in the Cities aren't necessarily a representative sample, but based on the way they feel about her I'm surprised that her endorsement is something a liberal candidate would want.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

She does notably have the endorsement of Nekima Levy Armstrong, a promient local civil rights leader (former head of the Minnesota NAACP and mayoral candidate in 2017 effectively running as the BLM candidate, although she's been criticized for becoming more "establishment" since then, she endorsed Ilhan Omar's primary opponent in 2020 and in 2021 actually endorsed Jacob Frey for re-election and opposed the failed police reform measure Q2), and a smattering of state legislators and city councilors who seem to be mostly generic D types.

She used to be Nekima Levy-Pounds, right? Obviously the people I'm friends with in the Cities aren't necessarily a representative sample, but based on the way they feel about her I'm surprised that her endorsement is something a liberal candidate would want.

Correct. And yeah a lot of people think she's just an opportunist now, but she does seem to still have some sway with black voters so it's understandable.

[Bismarck]

Reading their names on the poll alone make my choice very clear. Singh, the Indian-American candidate in this race, has my support (don't really care for the policies/views much one way or another, I'm guessing they're not that different from generic D).

Yikes.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Reading their names on the poll alone make my choice very clear. Singh, the Indian-American candidate in this race, has my support (don't really care for the policies/views much one way or another, I'm guessing they're not that different from generic D).

This isn't an office where "Generic D" is a thing. My Senators fit that bill because they mostly just vote the party line and don't raise a fuss either from the left or right. But a DA actually has to make big decisions. So support based on idpol is really shallow as it actually matters. Again Singh has impressed me from what I've seen of her and frankly her campaign is a good example of "woke done right" as opposed to if any of those San Francisco Board of Education clowns managed to become a DA (although not that they'd be any worse than the current DA...) or that idiot in Manhattan who is letting Trump off the hook. People like Larry Krasner and Tiffany Cabán are also great examples. But this is laughably shallow reasoning.

Really with your politics you might as well back Ostrow since he's pretty much a blank slate and always has been with his whole political career. I suspect though that he doesn't expect to or even want to win though and  that he's just running because he doesn't know what to do if he's not running for office.

[Schiff for Senate]

Reading their names on the poll alone make my choice very clear. Singh, the Indian-American candidate in this race, has my support (don't really care for the policies/views much one way or another, I'm guessing they're not that different from generic D).

Yikes.

Reading their names on the poll alone make my choice very clear. Singh, the Indian-American candidate in this race, has my support (don't really care for the policies/views much one way or another, I'm guessing they're not that different from generic D).

This isn't an office where "Generic D" is a thing. My Senators fit that bill because they mostly just vote the party line and don't raise a fuss either from the left or right. But a DA actually has to make big decisions. So support based on idpol is really shallow as it actually matters. Again Singh has impressed me from what I've seen of her and frankly her campaign is a good example of "woke done right" as opposed to if any of those San Francisco Board of Education clowns managed to become a DA (although not that they'd be any worse than the current DA...) or that idiot in Manhattan who is letting Trump off the hook. People like Larry Krasner and Tiffany Cabán are also great examples. But this is laughably shallow reasoning.

Really with your politics you might as well back Ostrow since he's pretty much a blank slate and always has been with his whole political career. I suspect though that he doesn't expect to or even want to win though and  that he's just running because he doesn't know what to do if he's not running for office.

I do adhere to identity politics, but in this particular case, my comment was largely ironic. Obviously her being Indian-American helps my opinion of her a bit but I'd never support her based solely off of that. If I lived in Hennepin County, honestly, I'd do what BRTD did and research the candidates properly (but be lightly biased towards Singh if I'm being honest).

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Moriarty has won the DFL endorsement. Don't read too much into that though, those things usually don't matter much for these non-partisan elections when all the other opponents are Democrats too.

Although a runoff between Moriarty and say Winkler would have some interesting in the Republican areas...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So Trautmann is out, and another candidate Martha Holton Dimick has gotten in, she's a black judge from North Minneapolis and seems to be running as the "tough on crime" candidate. Also her endorsements clearly put he as probably the most conservative candidate, they include a good chunk of Minneapolis politicians clearly on the right in the Minneapolis political spectrum (aka still Democrats) and even the former Minneapolis police chief.

Winkler is getting a lot of good press by the way because of his victory with the marijuana quasi-legalization bill. I'm going to bet on a runoff between him and Moriarty, and think he probably wins. Some people have raised valid questions about his experience since his law background was over handling corporate lawsuits and he's never tried or defended a criminal case in his life, but I kind of doubt voters care about that. Still plan on voting for Singh for now.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Looks like a Mary Moriarty vs. Martha Holton Dimick runoff.

Definitely voting for Moriarty, Dimick sucks and would be the de facto Republican candidate in the race. A bit ironic to see Republicans rally around a nominally Democratic black woman but also not surprising in this context.