Minneapolis City Council President Jenkins survives strong election challenge
Updated: 3:29 p.m.
Minneapolis City Council President Andrea Jenkins narrowly defeated challenger Soren Stevenson to retain her 8th Ward seat.
Jenkins and Stevenson both fell short of reaching a majority of first-choice ballots Tuesday night in the city’s ranked choice voting system. Jenkins won by 38 votes in the second round ballot count, Minneapolis election officials confirmed on Wednesday.
Jenkins, 62, has headed the council the previous two years, a term that brought such contentious debates as a rent stabilization policy and the location of a new 3rd Precinct police building.
Stevenson, 29, ran on a platform of increasing police accountability, promoting affordable housing and addressing climate change. His run was spurred by an incident in 2020 where he lost his left eye and suffered other injuries after being shot with a police projectile during a peaceful protest following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
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Jenkins said in a statement that she’s grateful for voters’ trust and that she planned to continue to push for policies that help the city continue to move forward. She cited legislative accomplishments including rent protections, paid family leave for city workers and declaring both racism and climate change as public health emergencies.
“I also want to congratulate my opponents on running a tough campaign,” Jenkins said. “I appreciate the ideas that have been shared throughout the course of the campaign and I hope we can work together to find common ground on the policies that we have agreement on.”
Not only was Jenkins apparent win over Stevenson close, it was actually a rare come-from-behind, ranked choice victory.
How often does the candidate leading in the first round end up losing?
Before this election, there had only been two candidates for city council seats that have led in the first round but lost the race in Minneapolis and St. Paul since the cities adopted ranked choice voting for municipal elections, according to an analysis of electoral data by the APM Research Lab.
In 2009, Minneapolis became the first Minnesota city to use ranked choice voting. There, the city council candidate who led in the first round always ended up winning — until 2017. After the first round in 2017, Ginger Jentzen led the race for representing Ward 3 on the Minneapolis City Council, but she eventually lost to Steve Fletcher in the third round.
In the same election, incumbent Barbara “Barb” Johnson initially led the race for her City Council seat for Ward 4, but she eventually lost in the second round to Phillipe Cunningham.
The Minneapolis City Council race in 2017 saw six of the 13 seats go beyond the first round of voting, notably higher than in other years when two or three seats would be decided by tallying second-choice or third-choice ballots.
Even the Minneapolis mayoral race in 2017, won by Jacob Frey, was decided after six rounds of vote tallying. That does not come close, however, to the 34 rounds it took for Betsy Hodges to become Minneapolis mayor in 2013. But, in both instances, Frey and Hodges led after the first round.
Since 2011 — the first election in St. Paul to use ranked choice voting — all of the candidates for St. Paul City Council who won their races led after the first round.
The 8th Ward race was the last contest to be decided. Races in the 6th and 7th Wards were also decided by tallying second choice ballots.
All results are unofficial until certified by the city’s canvassing board which meets next Monday.
APM Research Lab’s Ben Clary contributed to this report
Correction (Nov. 8, 2023): This story has been updated to include a more accurate description of the ballot counting procedure that determined Jenkins victory.