Governmental Affairs News: Preliminary Election Results

While there are elections results still forthcoming and many races could still change as more votes are counted, here is the situation as it stands.

There are still millions of votes to be counted across several states so there is no winner to be announced in the Presidential race, but former Vice President Joe Biden has won the vote in Minnesota by about 8 points. Senator Tina Smith won her re-election bid against former U.S. Rep. Jason Lewis, with about 49% of the vote as it stands now. Nationally, the GOP appears to have held control of the Senate, though seats in Maine, Michigan and North Carolina remain to close to call.

The most notable result of the Congressional races saw longtime DFL incumbent Colin Peterson lose by about 13 points. Incumbent U.S. Representatives Hagedorn (CD-1 R) and Craig (CD-2 DFL) appear to have won their respective races by about three points, while Representatives Phillips, McCollum, Omar, Emmer and Stauber easily defeated their challengers. If the current results hold, the Minnesota Congressional contingent will be evenly split at 4-4 along party lines. The Democrats have held the U.S. House but have lost seats, trimming their majority by at least a handful of seats.

Prior to the election, the Minnesota state Senate had a 35-32 Republican majority. Currently, it appears that 2 DFL and 2 Republican-held seats have flipped, which keeps the GOP-controlled chamber at the same split. DFL incumbents Dan Sparks (SD 27) and Matt Little (SD 58) were unable to win re-election while GOP races in SD 44 (Open) and SD 56 (Dan Hall) came up short.

There are still many races with uncounted votes in the state House, but it appears that the DFL will retain control, albeit with a smaller majority Prior to the election, Democrats held a 75-57 majority. Democrat incumbents in 5A, 6A, 19A, 54A, 55A, 57A and 57B have all either lost or are currently trailing which would leave the DFL with a much slimmer 69-63 margin.

While the state of the race is still in flux, credit unions are well positioned going into the next legislative session in January. Many of our champions won their races and we still enjoy strong support on both sides of the aisle. We’ll have a more in-depth analysis during the Election and Recap Analysis webinar next week on Thursday, November 12 at 9 AM. If you haven’t yet, you can register online.