Special election enlarges MN House GOP majority by 1

Republicans in the Minnesota House will have one more member when the legislative session begins next month.

GOP candidate Chad Anderson defeated the DFL's Andrew Carlson Tuesday in the contest to fill the seat recently vacated by longtime DFL Rep. Ann Lenczewski. She quit to take a job as a lobbyist.

Anderson's win gives House Republicans a 73-61 advantage over Democrats for the 2016 session, which begins in four weeks. House Republicans say the win also gives them momentum ahead of the November election.

Turnout was light in House District 50B, with about 5,000 votes cast in the special election. That's less than 20 percent of registered voters.

Anderson's margin of victory was 130 votes. But the 36-year-old real estate agent said he worked hard to win his first campaign.

"We were door-knocking and phone-calling. It was seven days a week," he said, describing his campaign as a "huge team effort."

Others helped too. The GOP-aligned independent expenditure group Minnesota Jobs Coalition mailed out thousands of campaign fliers to benefit Anderson. The House Republican Campaign Committee bought TV ads that criticized DFLer Andrew Carlson's record on the Bloomington City Council.

GOP House Speaker Kurt Daudt of Crown praised Anderson for winning in what he described as "a DFL stronghold." Daudt said he sees the pickup as a positive sign for the fall.

"We're really excited," he said. "I think it kind of shows that the environment right now is very favorable to Republicans and that Democrats likely are going to have a tough time this election cycle. And it's a great opportunity to show that we can be competitive in the suburbs."

The Republican gain is a setback for House Democrats, who now have one more seat to worry about in their effort to regain the majority this fall.

House Minority Leader Paul Thissen of Minneapolis blamed the defeat on low turnout. He said he's confident that a Democrat can win back the seat in November, when turnout should be significantly higher.

Still, he said the loss was disappointing.

"At the end of the day, this came down to a ground game," he said. "I think this should serve as a wakeup call to Democrats, that even in a presidential election it's not an easy task to win back the majority. We're going to have to work very hard."

Thissen also placed some of the blame on a specific piece of campaign literature. Ann Lenczewski had endorsed Carlson as her replacement, but a piece of Anderson campaign literature carried the message, "Anne endorses Chad."

"Chad Anderson's wife's name is Anne," Thissen said. "I'm not sure how much of an effect that had, but it was clearly intended to try to confuse voters."

Anderson denied the allegation. He said it was a lighthearted piece, and he was not trying to trick anyone.

Republicans won another special election yesterday for a vacant Senate seat in Anoka County. Republican Jim Abeler, a former state representative, won the three-candidate contest in Senate District 35 by a wide margin.

His victory doesn't change the partisan balance of the Senate, because Abeler fills the vacancy created last fall by the resignation of Republican Sen. Branden Petersen.

Correction (Feb. 10, 2016): An earlier version of this story used an incorrect percentage of registered voters going to the polls in the Feb. 9 special election in District 50B.