Close MN legislative races where small donations might yield big results
A few weeks back, I posted to the group to ask for advice on allocating small campaign contributions within Minnesota. That post gained little traction, apart from the very good advice offered by DU'er progree about donating to the campaign of Ann Johnson Stewart (https://annjohnsonstewart.com/). She's the Democrat who's running for the open seat in State Senate District 45. The party whose candidate wins in that district will control the state senate.
To preserve our Democratic trifecta in Minnesota, I think it's extremely important for everyone to at least take advantage of the Political Contribution Refund, in which the Minnesota Department of Revenue will refund up to $75 per individual (or $150 per married couple) for contributions made to candidates and parties within Minnesota. We should each be taking advantage of that free money, because the other guys are going to. Info here: https://www.revenue.state.mn.us/political-contribution-refund
I've continued my little quest to identify Minnesota Democrats in close races where the few dollars I have to give might help to make a difference, and I've come up with these:
Kari Rehrauer, House District 35B (https://kariformn.com/)
This is an open seat. The Democratic incumbent is not running for relection. The race in this district was very close in 2022, with the Democratic candidate winning 50.64% to 49.29%.
I learned from a recent post by RandySF that Rehrauer's Republican opponent "would support constitutional abortion ban 'in a heartbeat' "
https://democraticunderground.com/105913893
Mark Munger, House Districe 3B (https://www.munger4mn.com)
This seat can certainly be flipped. The Republican incumbent won by only a half a percentage point in 2022, 50.00% to 49.85.
Lucia Wroblewski, House District 41A (https://www.luciaforhouse.com/)
Republicans won this seat 50.24R% to 49.69% in 2022, but the Republican incumbent is not running for re-election. That means to me that the GOP has no incumbency advantage in this race.
The online tools I used to sleuth out these races were these:
https://www.sos.state.mn.us/election-administration-campaigns/data-maps/minnesota-legislative-maps/
https://electionresults.sos.mn.gov/20221108
https://ballotpedia.org/Minnesota_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2024
Researching with these tools was a fairly time-consuming and inefficient process. I noted with interest a recent post by DU'er applegrove that told of an online tool to help streamline the process of finding close, winnable races. I'll try to look into that a little further. Links are here:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100219434867
https://votemaximizer.org/