In January, federal ICE agents began engaging in an egregious abuse of power and intentional cruelty in Minnesota. In the weeks that followed, federal agents conducted warrantless arrests, released tear gas and flashbang grenades in residential neighborhoods, and pointed weapons at protesters. Federal agents killed two U.S. citizens.
In response, state lawmakers in both chambers introduced policies to hold federal agents accountable, including a policy the Senate passed that would allow residents to sue federal agents in state court for violating their constitutional rights. But because the balance of power in the House is tied, lawmakers didn’t have the governing power they needed to send the policy to the Governor’s desk.
The policy died in the House, where the majority was lost by a single seat in 2024.
Without the power of a trifecta — control of the House, Senate, and governorship — lawmakers can introduce popular policies that could protect Minnesotans from federal abuses, but they do not have the votes to pass them. This is the impact of losing state legislative races that are often overlooked, underfunded, and decided by razor-thin margins.
In 2026, we have the opportunity to build the governing power that state lawmakers need to protect real people from immediate harm.
The Minnesota House is tied, and the 2024 results that decided the balance of power in the chamber were incredibly close — if just 80 votes had changed across one seat, the majority would have held. The seat that tied the chamber was won by just eight votes. These close margins are an example of how a tiny number of votes could make the difference between deepening governing power in both the House and Senate or losing control of both chambers in 2026.
In the face of the cruelty and chaos in Minnesota, it has never been more clear that we must do everything in our power to build governing power there this November.
TSP helped to protect the Senate majority and tie the House. In the House, the 16 closest seats in the chamber were won or lost by less than 5 percent of the vote. Four key seats were won by fewer than 300 votes, and the closest race came down to 15 votes — a stark indicator of what could have happened in the chamber if we weren’t there. For context, in 2016, when Hillary Clinton won the state by a similar margin to VP Harris, there was a 20-seat rightwing House majority. In 2025, newly elected lawmakers were sworn in to a chamber tied at 67-67.
Giving Circles’ work in Minnesota over the past two cycles helped fuel these results and, crucially, helped to hold the one-seat State Senate majority by powering a special election in November.
Giving Circles raised TSP’s first Minnesota investment — long before most people were thinking about giving political dollars. This kind of early investment was unprecedented in Minnesota, and the outcomes were phenomenal.
We held ground to defend the Minnesota House, where we could only afford to lose two seats. In the Senate, we gained the three seats needed to build a new majority in the chamber.
Select a state to learn more.
State lawmakers have the power to enact policies that can protect millions of Americans, and the overall direction of the country, from the worst impacts of a second Trump presidency.
Ready to work with us in the states? Sign up for our email list to make an impact — right from your inbox:
Ready to work with us in the states? Sign up to make an impact — right from your inbox.
