Minnesota Democrats Confident They'll Retain Power In Senate
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Democrats hold a 10-seat advantage in the Minnesota Senate, but all 67 seats are up for grabs Tuesday.
DFL chair Ken Martin says his party is confident they will remain in power in the Senate once Election Day is on the books, regardless of how the races swing for the Minnesota House of Representatives.
"Clearly we're in a much more favorable position in the Senate. The likelihood of the Senate Republicans flipping the Senate majority is pretty slim," Martin said.
Republican Party chair Keith Downey said, with a Democratic governor still in office until at least 2018, the GOP hopes to gain as much leverage as they can this year "so that we actually have a real negotiation with Gov. Dayton and we're not outnumbered."
Most experts agree that if any change is to come to the balance of power in the Minnesota Senate, it's the rural races that will do it, not those from the Twin Cities metro core.
"The DFL House Caucus and the Senate Republican caucus have exactly opposite challenges in selection, in terms of the geographic parts of the state they have to win in to be able to win back the majority," Martin said.
Downey said that the battlegrounds for the Senate "tend to be in greater Minnesota with a handful of in the suburbs." He said one of the keys to winning back the Senate is to gain the votes of people who have never voted in Minnesota before, or haven't voted here in a long time.
Martin said, despite the controversy around the presidential candidates this year, Minnesotans are aware that the question of who holds power in the Minnesota Senate affects them just as much.
"People are making a differentiation between the presidential race and the local candidates. People are paying attention to the local races. They understand how important it is," he said.