Election to fill assassinated Minnesota House member's seat will decide control of the chamber

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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A special legislative election Tuesday for a seat previously held by a Minnesota Democrat who was assassinated in June will determine control of the state House.

The election to replace former House Speaker Melissa Hortman takes place about three months after she and her husband were gunned down in their home by a man impersonating a police officer in Brooklyn Park, a suburb northwest of Minneapolis. Another legislator and his wife also were shot but survived.

Vance Boelter, 57, faces federal and state murder, attempted murder and other charges in the June 14 attacks.

Tuesday’s special election between Democrat Xp Lee and Republican Ruth Bittner also follows another act of political violence, the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Utah last Wednesday. The shootings have been a concern among voters in the district — and for both candidates.

Lee said he wants to calm the “charged atmosphere” in the wake of Kirk's death.

Bittner said the violence briefly gave her pause about running for office, but she concluded that “there’s no way to solve this problem if we shrink back in fear.”

Lee, a former Brooklyn Park City Council member, easily won a three-way Democratic primary in August. Bittner, a real estate agent, was the sole Republican on the primary ballot for the seat in the heavily Democratic district.

A victory by Lee would restore a 67-67 tie and preserve a power-sharing deal that existed for most of the 2025 legislative session after the 2024 elections cost House Democrats their majority.

Hortman brokered that agreement, which ended Democrats' three-week boycott. Under the deal, she agreed to end her six-year tenure as speaker and let Republican Lisa Demuth take the position. Hortman then took the title speaker emerita. Most legislative committees became evenly split between Republican and Democratic members, with co-chairs from each party.

The tie in the House meant some level of bipartisan agreement was required to pass anything in this year’s session.

An upset by Bittner would give Republicans control of the House for the first time since 2018, and put them in an even stronger position to force concessions from Democratic Gov. Tim Walz and a Senate that Democrats control by only one vote.

Two more special elections will be held Nov. 4 in a pair of Minnesota Senate districts.

One is to fill the seat vacated by Democratic Sen. Nicole Mitchell, of the St. Paul suburb of Woodbury. She resigned in July after she was convicted of burglarizing her estranged stepmother’s home. The other is for the seat of Republican Sen. Bruce Anderson, of the Minneapolis exurb of Buffalo, who died in July.

Given that the districts are heavily Democratic and heavily Republican, respectively, control of the Senate isn’t expected to change. But the Democratic candidate for Mitchell’s seat is state Rep. Amanda Hemmingsen-Jaeger, of Woodbury. If she wins, the governor will have to call another special election to fill her House seat.