Minnesota political observers are fixated on the race for governor, but the 2026 elections are also about whether one party can wrest control of the could-not-be-closer state Legislature that is 101 DFL members to 100 Republicans.
The DFL is plotting to take control of purplish northern suburbs, while the Republican strategy might come down to total domination of northern Minnesota.
All 201 legislative seats will be up for grabs in the 2026 election, though recent voting patterns suggest only a few dozen of those races will be truly competitive.
Related: Walz drops bid for third term as governor; Klobuchar considers running
Both sides are predictably going after the face of their opposing party — Gov. Tim Walz and President Donald Trump. But dig a little deeper and there are crucial non-Walz-v-Trump talking points.
For example, each party has their version of events regarding the 2023 legislative session when a DFL majority passed an array of laws expanding education and health care services along with labor and environmental protections.
Richard Carlbom, chair of the Minnesota DFL, said that these recently enacted laws have made life more affordable for Minnesotans. But Alex Plechash, the GOP party chair, declared that their biggest impact was to raise property taxes and erase the state’s budget surplus.
There are also issues specific to legislative districts. For example, first-term DFL Sen. Grant Hauschild said that he is running partially based on his record of expanding ambulance services in an exceedingly rural Iron Range district.
Here is a super early guide to these legislative races.
Sure, 201 spots are technically up for grabs. But how many races will actually be competitive?
If the past is prologue, a little under 20%.
Senators are up for election every four years. According to the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office, 13 out of the 67 Senate races in 2022 were decided by less than 10 percentage points.
Related: Talking points for all. Amid wild federal uncertainty, here is what to know about Minnesota’s economic outlook.
House members run every two years. Per the Secretary of State, 21 out of 134 House contests in 2024 were determined by less than 10%.
So, on the one hand, over 80% of districts are beyond safe. A Republican in Minneapolis or a DFLer in southwestern Minnesota could levitate over one of the state’s frozen lakes and still get trounced in the general election.
On the other hand, party leaders have numerous possible races to focus upon in flipping the Senate, where the DFL has a 34-33 edge, and House, which is tied at 67 members each.
Editor’s note: The Minnesota House election margin map was updated on Jan. 5, 2026. Due to a scraping error, four districts contained incorrect results.
Plechash declined to specify what races Republicans would spend the most money on. He said that the party would have a clearer idea of what candidates to back after state caucuses on Feb. 3, which is when members of both parties are scheduled to meet and discuss their strategy as well as begin the process of endorsing candidates.
(The actual primary for statewide races is set to take place in August.)
A few specific battleground races
Carlbom did mention specific races, including those in the northern Minneapolis suburbs. The party chair said that the DFL is targeting seats held by Republicans Jim Abeler, Michael Kreun, and Warren Limmer.
The DFL chair also said that the party must work to protect spots helmed by Hauschild, Judy Seeberger and Rob Kupec.
Hauschild represents the state’s largest district by square mileage, a seahorse-shaped outpost in northeast Minnesota. Seeberger holds a district southeast of St. Paul that includes Stillwater and Hastings. Kupec presides over a western district that includes both farmland and the city of Moorhead.
Each of these candidates was spotlighted this fall as DFLers who might not go along with an assault weapons ban proposed by Walz. All are in their first-term.
Why are DFLers saying that they will hold onto the Senate and seize the House?
Because they will associate Republicans with Trump, while claiming that the DFL is the party of affordability.
According to a SurveyUSA poll taken in December, the president has a 42% approval rating in Minnesota and 55% disapproval rating.
“People need to see a DFL party that is out there working alongside them and pushing back against this president,” Carlbom said.
Along with associating candidates with Trump, Carlbom wants DFLers to run on the tax cuts and new programs that the DFL-controlled Legislature passed in 2023.
Carlbom carries with him a leaflet that summarizes the party’s legislative action from that year.
“That amazing 2023 session made key investments in making life more affordable,” Carlbom said. “We already have an incredible track record when it comes to making life more affordable for families, universal school meals, the child tax credit, the biggest middle-class tax cut in state history, andf unding our schools.”
What’s a specific example of a race where DFLers are honing this message?
Let’s look at Abeler’s Senate District 35, which includes parts of Anoka and Coon Rapids.
Abeler, who runs a chiropractic clinic in Anoka, was first elected to the House in 1998 and won a special election to the Senate in 2016.
As his letter to Trump imploring the president not to stereotype Somali immigrants suggests, Abeler has a reputation as a bipartisan lawmaker. He has championed the state’s robust funding for Medicaid services, including long-term home and nursing facility care for seniors.
But the combination of redistricting in 2022 and the suburbs getting bluer make him vulnerable.
Abeler won by the smallest margin of victory of any Senator in 2022, edging Kari Rehrauer 50.2% to 49.7% — or 186 total votes.
Rehrauer has since been elected to the Minnesota House. Angela Nelson, a principal at Otter Lake Elementary School, has stepped forward as the DFL’s possible nominee in District 35 (another DFL candidate, Ian Oundo, declared but subsequently suspended his campaign).
In an interview, Nelson spoke of completing her master’s degree in education during her first maternity leave, and getting an administrative license during her second.
“I am very goal driven and excited to use my leadership skills,” Nelson said.
Nelson is focused on “affordable child care, rising prescription drug costs, and the lack of resources for an aging population,” she said.
Related: The head of the Minnesota agency in charge of horse racing tracks stepped down in anger. Here’s why.
Nelson has always resided in Minnesota and grew up in Coon Rapids. She said that Abeler has become “out of touch” with her local community, which now rejects Republican Party positions like a ban on abortion.
“As a politician, he is really good at talking the talk,” Nelson said of Abeler. “While he comes across as being very bipartisan, if you look at his voting record he rarely goes against his party.”
Abeler — who said he knocked on 21,780 doors to preserve his Senate seat in 2022 (A Minnesota Senate district has about 85,000 people and far fewer households.) — acknowledged that keeping his seat will be a challenge.
“I expect it to be quite a hot race,” he said during a phone interview in which he went through a car wash and then bought a Powerball ticket.
“I’ve tried to collaborate with everybody,” Abeler added. “I cannot control the future.”
Why do Republicans think they can get control of the Legislature?
Walz and property taxes.
The SurveyUSA poll indicating displeasure with Trump showed that Minnesotans are split on Walz, with 48% registering approval and 48% disapproval.
Republicans are zoomed in on their claim that Walz is an inept steward of taxpayer money, especially in preventing health care providers from defrauding Medicaid.
“Having Tim Walz at the top of the ballot helps us,” Plechash said. “I hope that isn’t so much help that the Democratic Party reconsiders things.”
Republicans will also run on the issue that the DFL legislature expanded social and education services too much in 2023, with the result being that — by 2027 — the state is projected to spend more than it brings in.
These expanded state programs, Plechash contends, are directly tied to higher property taxes, which in 2026 are projected to be at their highest average increase in 24 years. According to the Minnesota Department of Revenue, homeowners will likely pay 7% more in property taxes this year compared to 2025.
“We are hearing scores of complaints about property taxes going up,” Plechash said.
The State Legislature does not dictate property tax payments. Counties, cities and school districts do.
Related: GOP’s Kristin Robbins says her Minnesota fraud prevention committee is not a political stunt. Is she right?
That said, Julie Ring, executive director of the Association of Minnesota Counties, explained that counties do raise property taxes so as to bring in enough money to comply with state law. This is especially true in Minnesota because counties administer an array of social services from Medicaid to child protection services to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
“Much of what we do in counties is delegated to us by the state,” Ring said.
However, changes at the federal level also impact property taxes.
One of these changes is in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance, or food stamps, in which the One Big Beautiful Bill has substantially shifted administration of the program from the federal government to the states.
And since Minnesota has counties administering food stamps, the cost burden ultimately falls to the counties, and, in turn, property taxpayers, Ring said.
It bears watching this year how property taxes are politicized, and how much of competing claims are based in reality.
What is an example of a race where Republicans are deploying this messaging?
Hauschild’s third district.
Tom Bakk held this seat for 20 years. For nearly a decade, Bakk was the DFL’s Senate leader, but in his last two years in office, he stopped caucusing with the DFL.
Bakk’s defection was emblematic of a changed Iron Range that for years had been dominantly DFL because much of the population were members of labor unions.
When Bakk announced his retirement in 2022, he endorsed a Republican — Babbitt mayor and real estate agent Andrea Zupancich — against Hauschild.
Hauschild, a former staffer for U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, defeated Zupancich by less than 700 votes, 50.8% to 49.2%. It was the only Iron Range race won by a DFLer.
Zupancich is running again this year. In an interview, she focused on the fact that Hauschild was part of a DFL voting bloc that in 2023 used a budget surplus to expand health and education programs instead of cutting taxes or putting extra money in reserve.
“They blew through our money,” she said in an interview about Hauschild’s work with the DFL. “And he could have been the deciding vote.”
Zupancich said that her campaign drove into speed bumps in 2022.
“I had some issues with some of my people. My campaign manager got sick. My treasurer had to be removed,” she said. “I learned a lot.”
And the Republican said that she still struggles with perhaps the most important job of any politician: raising money.
“Is there a good way to ask people for money?” Zupancich said.
Hauschild, meanwhile, is extremely unextreme, stating, “I am probably the most moderate member of the Legislature.”
The senator added that he is hyper-focused on the Iron Range’s economic core of “taconite, timber and tourism.”
Hauschild said that voters will judge him on how he has helped the district on matters like securing $18 million in yearly state monies to rural ambulance services, and getting a state bond issued for a regional health and wellness center in International Falls.
He downplayed any overall Iron Range displeasure with Walz and the DFL, noting that he is getting contributions from Republican donors.
“I feel very strongly that I am properly representing the northland,” Hauschild said. “People don’t vote for their legislators based on the governor and other statewide offices.”
In case people do vote for their legislators based on the governor (or the president), is there anything more we should know about that?
The DFL’s main challenge would seem to be managing the flurry of news surrounding health care providers who may have scammed Minnesota’s Medicaid program.
Carlbom gave the DFL’s talking points on this for now, which is that they are the party working to actually stop payments to phony health care providers, while Republicans gleefully point out fraud from the sidelines.
“Governor Walz and Democrats have taken fraud incredibly seriously,” Carlbom said. “I have seen Tim Walz red in the face, so angry that people continue to take advantage of these programs.”
Republicans, meanwhile, seem to be struggling over whether they should blatantly say that Somali immigrants are at the root of the state’s ills. Trump infamously called Somalis garbage, especially when it comes to the aforementioned fraud.
Last week, House Speaker and gubernatorial candidate Lisa Demuth acknowledged that the GOP caucus worked with content creator Nick Shirley.
Shirley’s widely watched video on Medicaid fraud contained baseless claims ranging from Somali immigrants using state money to fund Islamic terrorist groups, to Minnesota changing its state flag to conform with Somalia’s flag, to Somali migrants being “exceptionally violent people.”
But Plechash distanced himself from such generalizations.
“I have been reaching into the Somali community,” Plechash said. “People in their community are as equally distressed about fraud as anyone else.”
The GOP party chair also said he did not want candidates to emulate Trump.
“Trump is a singular force in politics,” the Republican party chair said. “There is no duplicating his style nor should anyone even try.”
The post From Anoka to the Iron Range, a preview of Minnesota legislative battlegrounds in 2026 appeared first on MinnPost.
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