The Opportunity

While we were on the ground a year and half before our first elections in Minnesota, it was still an uphill battle in the state.

We saw the opportunity for a new trifecta by ending rightwing control of the Minnesota Senate, but the House was in the crosshairs of the rightwing, who saw the opportunity for unified control of the legislature.

Our investment and tactics helped to hold the House and flip the Senate to create the first Democratic trifecta since 2014. And Minnesota’s legislative majorities immediately got to work, introducing more policies in the first month of the 2023 sessions than in the first month of the past six sessions combined.

To preserve the trifecta’s governing power and continue improving lives for all Minnesotans, we must protect the House majority in November.

The Stakes

Our policy team supported lawmakers in Minnesota’s new majorities with tools and resources to hit the ground running when the legislative session began in January, supporting lawmakers to enact impactful policies at a record pace:

• Codify abortion rights into state law, becoming the first state to do so in the post-Roe era.
• Safeguard the freedom to make personal healthcare decisions by protecting patients from other states who seek abortion care in Minnesota.
• Cut taxes to save 400,000 retirees an average of $1,200 each year.
• Enact universal background checks for all gun sales and a red flag policy that will keep guns out of the hands of those who are a danger to themselves or others.
• Fight childhood hunger by providing all 800,000 Minnesota students free breakfast and lunch, regardless of their family’s income.
• Provide almost 1 million workers with paid family and medical leave to ensure no Minnesotan has to make the choice between a paycheck and taking time off to care for a new baby or a sick family member.
• Invest in clean, safe energy by enacting a climate action plan with a goal of requiring utilities to be powered by clean energy sources by 2040.
• Ensure safe, clean drinking water in every tap by moving to replace all lead pipes in the state.
• Invest in affordable housing to provide Minnesotans in need with rental assistance — there were 20,000 evictions in 2022 — and to ensure homeownership is an option for those who want to call Minnesota home.
• Strengthen our democracy by implementing automatic voter registration, allowing 16 and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote, creating a permanent absentee voting list, and restoring the right to vote for 55,000 people with felony convictions after they have served their sentences.

The Landscape

The margins for our victories in Minnesota were razor-thin:

• In the Senate, we flipped three seats for a 34-33 majority. Just 161 voters made the difference in the crucial, tie-breaking seat.
• In the House, we are three seats away from a shift in the balance of power. Just 738 voters made the difference across the three closest seats in that chamber.

We started on the path to these hard-won victories in 2021. It’s time to get to work to protect crucial governing power in the Minnesota House ahead of 2024. To achieve that goal, our work has already begun.

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 — we could only afford to lose two seats.
• In the Senate, we needed to gain three seats for a new majority, and we won the seats we needed.
• When we won the Senate, we also increased governing power for diverse state lawmakers. 56 percent of the new majority are women lawmakers, 26 percent are BIPOC, and 9 percent are LGBTQ+, as compared to the previous majority, where just 19 percent of the lawmakers were women, and there were no BIPOC or LGBTQ+ lawmakers.