The polls closed, the tight races were tabulated, and we now have our City Council for 2024-2025. That’s right – another two-year term for all 13 councilmembers.
Eleven of those councilmembers won reelection. There are only two newcomers to City Council: Katie Cashman (Ward 7) and Aurin Chowdhury (Ward 12).
Some were landslide victories, like Councilmember Elliott Payne's 89% of Ward 1 votes, while other races came down to a hair.
The closest race was in Ward 8, where City Council President and Ward 8 Councilmember Andrea Jenkins won by 38 votes against Soren Stevenson. That amount of votes is few enough to qualify for a publicly-funded recount, but Stevenson is declining that option, as our sister publication Southwest Voices reported.
“To allow for our campaign team and supporters to rest and grieve the loss of this election, my campaign team and I have decided not to pursue a recount at this time,” Stevenson wrote in a statement posted to Twitter and Facebook late Thursday afternoon.
Technically, while these results have been reported by the city, they're still considered unofficial until the Municipal Canvassing Board certifies final results at a Monday morning meeting, at which point they'll become official.
A left-leaning coalition of seven councilmembers now holds the majority, and their votes will influence how the city responds to rent control, encampments, minimum wage for rideshare drivers and other issues. Kyle Stokes of MinnPost has more on how that could play out over the next two years.
Here's a quick recap of what happened in the 2023 City Council election in the downtown Minneapolis wards:
- Ward 3 (Downtown East, Downtown West, North Loop, Nicollet Island-East Bank): Councilmember Michael Rainville secured another two-year term with, 69% of votes over challenger Marcus Mills, a local organizer.
- Ward 5 (North Loop): Councilmember Jeremiah Ellison earned 53% of votes over challenger Victor Martinez.
- Ward 6 (Elliot Park): Councilmember Jamal Osman got 48% of votes over three challengers.
- Ward 7 (Downtown West, Loring Park): In the three-way race for Lisa Goodman's long-held seat, Katie Cashman narrowly beat candidate Scott Graham by 59 votes, the second-closest race of the election.
Downtown Voices talked to Ward 3 and Ward 7 voters on Election Day about what brought them out to the polls during an off-year election with low-voter turnout.
The newly-elected City Council will be sworn in at the beginning of 2024 and remain in their posts through 2025.
Minneapolis voters will again head back to the polls in November 2025 to elect councilmembers in each ward, as well as mayor. At that point, councilmembers' terms will return to four-year terms.
Melody Hofmann of Southwest Voices contributed to this report.
