Tornado Watch issued for Big Stone, Traverse, Clay, Wilkin, Norman

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

Candidate filing is over in Minnesota. A double-digit field of Republican hopefuls and a half-dozen DFLers have already secured primary slots for the open U.S. Senate seat; 14 are running for governor, with an even split of DFL and GOP candidates.

The sizeable number of primary challengers comes despite the work over the weekend by GOP and DFL activists to endorse candidates at their conventions. It’s led some to question whether Minnesota should scrap conventions altogether and go directly to primaries.

“I do think at this point in time that's a really serious question that the Legislature should debate,” Mike Erlandson, chair of the Minnesota DFL from 1999 to 2005, told MPR News.

“It’s OK to have caucuses kind of at the start of the political process and let people come out and gather with their neighbors and talk about issues and talk about candidates,” Erlandson said, but he questioned whether “a couple thousand people on each side of the political spectrum” should be choosing candidates for all Minnesotans.

He questioned the efforts by some DFL activists over the weekend to not back Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s bid for governor, saying alternate candidates were inexperienced and had “absolutely no business running the state of Minnesota.”

Erlandson noted that Tim Walz and Mark Dayton were not the endorsed candidates during their first runs for governor.

Given the concerns, “I think it's really time for both political parties to take a look at that,” he said of ending endorsing conventions. 

“The challenge, of course, is that the people that have to make the change are now elected officials,” he added. “And they're a product of that system, and it’s not always easy to get them to change something that they’re comfortable with.”

Listen to the full conversation by clicking the player above.

Politics and Government News

Shows

Morning Edition

On Air

Cathy Wurzer

Host

Lukas Levin

Author

“I do think at this point in time that's a really serious question that the Legislature should debate,” Mike Erlandson, chair of the Minnesota DFL from 1999 to 2005, said of ending endorsing conventions and going straight to primaries.

Ex-DFL chair says Minnesota should consider scrapping endorsing conventions

Go Deeper.

Like this?

News you can use in your inbox