Election News 2024
Justice Department investigating racist mass texts sent following the election
Several federal and state agencies are investigating how racist mass texts were sent to Black people across the country in the wake of the presidential election this week. The messages invoking slavery raised alarm across the country this week after they were sent to Black men, women and students, including middle schoolers, prompting inquiries by the FBI and other agencies. Experts say the culprit likely took advantage of a bulk-messaging industry designed to help legitimate marketers reach people on their phones. Phone service provider TextNow said that “one or more” of its accounts were used to send the text messages and that it quickly disabled those accounts for violating its terms of service.
Two Minnesota House Races Will Decide Leadership
Both will have a recount since the voting tallies are so close. If Democrats retain both seats, there will be an even split with 67 Democrats and 67 Republicans. Republicans would gain a majority if they win at least one of those races. District 54A is in the Shakopee area. District 14B is in the Saint Cloud area.
Associated Press Calls
Donald Trump scored a decisive victory in a deeply divided nation. And in the process, the Republican president-elect exposed a weakness within the Democratic base. He also beat back concerns about his moral failings, becoming the first U.S. president with a felony conviction. Ultimately, he won over frustrated voters with bold promises that his brand of America-first economic populism and conservatism would make their lives better. He will be tested immediately, however, and there are reasons to believe his plans for mass deportations and massive tariffs may hurt the very people who enabled his victory. But in the short term, the Democrats face a more urgent reckoning. Full story
The Associated Press declared that Republican Donald Trump won Wisconsin — and with it, a return to the White House — once it determined that the remaining uncounted votes mostly from the greater Milwaukee area would not be enough to allow Vice President Kamala Harris to overtake Trump for the lead. With almost all of the vote counted, the AP declared Trump the winner of Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes at 5:34 a.m. ET, enough to push the former president past the 270-vote threshold needed to retake the presidency. Full story.
Vice President Kamala Harris carried Minnesota on Wednesday on a ticket with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, extending a winning streak for Democrats that goes back 52 years. In choosing Walz, Harris elevated a Midwestern governor, veteran and union supporter who helped enact an ambitious Democratic agenda for his state, including sweeping protections for abortion rights and generous aid to families. No Republican presidential candidate has carried Minnesota since Richard Nixon in 1972, although Donald Trump came close in 2016 when he fell just 1.5 percentage points short of Hillary Clinton. The Associated Press declared Harris the winner at 2:47 a.m. EST.
Democratic Rep. Betty McCollum won reelection to a U.S. House seat representing Minnesota on Wednesday. McCollum has already served 12 two-year terms and is the dean of the state’s congressional delegation. She has represented the 4th District, which includes St. Paul and several suburbs, since 2001. At that point, McCollum was just the second woman ever elected to Congress from Minnesota. For the second election in a row, her Republican challenger was real estate broker May Lor Xiong, of Roseville, a Hmong American whose refugee family settled in the U.S. in 1987. The Associated Press declared McCollum the winner at 2:31 a.m. EST.
Republican Rep. Tom Emmer won reelection to a U.S. House seat representing Minnesota on Wednesday. Emmer is majority whip, the No. 3 position in the House GOP leadership. He has represented central Minnesota’s conservative 6th District since 2015. He also served in the Minnesota House and ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2010. Emmer played the part of the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, during the debate preparations for Donald Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, of Ohio. Emmer’s Democratic challenger was Jeanne Hendricks, a nurse anesthetist from St. Cloud. The Associated Press declared Emmer the winner at 12:01 a.m. EST.
Republican Rep. Pete Stauber won reelection to a U.S. House seat representing Minnesota on Tuesday. Stauber was first elected to the seat in northeastern Minnesota’s 8th District in 2018 and is a champion of the region’s iron mining industry. He’s a former St. Louis County commissioner and city councilor from Hermantown who served as a Duluth police officer for over two decades. He defeated former state Rep. Jen Schultz, a Democrat and health care economics professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth who was making her second run for the seat. The Associated Press declared Stauber the winner at 11:56 p.m. EST.
Democrat Kelly Morrison won election to a U.S. House seat representing Minnesota on Tuesday. Morrison is an OB-GYN and abortion rights advocate from Deephaven who resigned from the Minnesota Senate in June to run for Congress. She won the suburban Minneapolis 3rd District seat being vacated by Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips, who unsuccessfully challenged President Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination, arguing that Biden was too old. The Republican candidate was retired judge Tad Jude, whose long political career also included service as a Hennepin County Board member and state legislator. The Associated Press declared Morrison the winner at 11:55 p.m. EST.
Democratic Rep. Angie Craig won reelection to a U.S. House seat representing Minnesota on Tuesday. Craig, a former journalist and communications professional, will serve a fourth term representing suburban and rural areas south of Minneapolis and St. Paul. She defeated Republican Joe Teirab, a Marine Corps veteran, former federal prosecutor and son of a Sudanese immigrant. The 2nd Congressional District is widely considered the most competitive district in the state. The Associated Press declared Craig the winner at 11:52 p.m. EST.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar won a fourth term Tuesday over ex-NBA player Royce White in Minnesota. Klobuchar went into the campaign with a history of big wins and a huge financial advantage. She drew 60% of the vote in 2018, 65% in 2012 and 58% in 2006. White is a grassroots populist conservative who acknowledged he was as surprised as anyone when he won the state GOP endorsement in May. While White strongly supported Donald Trump, the former president never endorsed him, and top office-holders kept their distance. The Associated Press declared Klobuchar the winner at 11:43 p.m. EST.
Republican Rep. Brad Finstad won reelection to a U.S. House seat representing Minnesota on Tuesday. The New Ulm native was running for his second full term in Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District. Finstad served as state director for USDA Rural Development during President Donald Trump’s administration. He won a special election in August 2022 to fill the seat of the late Republican Rep. Jim Hagedorn and went on to win a full term that November. His Democratic opponent was Rachel Bohman, a Rochester native who previously served as elections chief in Hennepin County. The Associated Press declared Finstad the winner at 11:42 p.m. EST.
Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar won reelection to a U.S. House seat representing Minnesota on Tuesday. Omar will get a third term representing the heavily Democratic 5th District, which includes Minneapolis and some suburbs. She’s one of the progressive House members known as the “Squad” and a sharp critic of Israel’s conduct in its war with Hamas. When Omar first ran in 2018, she became one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress. Her Republican challenger was Dalia Al-Aqidi, an Iraqi American journalist and self-described secular Muslim who called Omar pro-Hamas. The Associated Press declared Omar the winner at 11:32 p.m. EST.
Republican Rep. Michelle Fischbach won reelection to a U.S. House seat representing Minnesota on Tuesday. Fischbach is a former state senator who rose to become Senate president. She also served as Minnesota’s lieutenant governor in 2018. She defeated a 30-year incumbent when she first won election to Congress in 2020 from western Minnesota’s 7th District. Fischbach had former President Donald Trump’s endorsement when she turned aside a primary challenge in August from populist Steve Boyd, who had blocked her endorsement at the district convention. Fischbach’s Democratic challenger was A.J. Peters, of Browerville. The Associated Press declared Fischbach the winner at 11:07 p.m. EST.
Results
Women We Featured This Fall
thanks to underwriting support from Vote Run Lead and Women Winning
Election: Talking with Incumbent Legislator Brion Curran
Election: Talking With House Candidate Lucia Wroblewski
Q&A: Meeting a Few of the Women Running for Office Statewide
See this story about Huldah Hiltsley’s win as the first Kenyan state legislator in the U.S., who had been on the verge of deportation before then-U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone step in on behalf of her family
The Motivations Behind a Campaign: Rachel Bohman and Jen Schultz
Abortion Rights on the Ballot
WASHINGTON (AP) — Abortion rights advocates lost on Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota ballot measure but prevailed in seven other states, including Missouri, where an amendment clears the way to undo one of the nation’s strictest bans. By rejecting adding abortion rights to their state constitution, Florida voters kept a ban on abortion after the first six weeks of pregnancy in place. It’s the first time abortion rights groups have lost in a statewide ballot question since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ended a national right to abortion in 2022. Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Montana and Nevada voters adopted such measures and New Yorkers passed an amendment to bar discrimination on the basis of “pregnancy outcomes.”
Minnesota Early Voting
As of 9 a.m. Tuesday, November 5, 2024, local election officials have accepted 1,271,636 absentee and mail ballots for the November 5 Election. Local election officials have distributed 1,441,898 absentee and mail ballots in Minnesota since voting began on September 20. Additional absentee voting statistics are available online.
About 128,000 ballots have not yet been returned. All ballots must be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day to be counted. Minnesotans are encouraged to return their ballots in-person to their local election office as soon as possible to ensure their vote is counted. Voters can also choose to vote at their local polling place instead of returning their absentee ballot. Minnesotans can track their ballot at mnvotes.gov/track.
Voters line up to enter their polling place at the Cincinnati Observatory on election day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Liza Fortt, 74, center, waits in line to cast her ballot for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris at her polling place at Scranton High School in Scranton, Pa., on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
People line up in the rain waiting for polls to open to vote on Election Day, on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Madison, Wis. (AP Photo/Scott Bauer)
Voters line up to cast their ballots at The Church at Brook Hills on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Birmingham, Ala. (AP Photo/Vasha Hunt)
National Early Voting
As of Monday, Associated Press tracking of advance voting nationwide showed roughly 82 million ballots already cast — slightly more than half the total number of votes in the presidential election four years earlier. That’s driven partly by Republican voters, who were casting early ballots at a higher rate than in recent previous elections after a campaign by former President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee to counter the Democrats’ longstanding advantage in the early vote.
Despite long lines in some places and a few typical glitches, early in-person and mail voting also proceeded without any major problems.
That included in the parts of western North Carolina hammered last month by Hurricane Helene. State and local election officials, benefiting from changes made by the Republican-controlled legislature, pulled off a herculean effort to ensure residents could cast their ballots as they dealt with power outages, lack of water and washed out roads.
By the time early voting in North Carolina had ended on Saturday, over 4.4 million voters — or nearly 57% of all registered voters in the state — had cast their ballots. As of Monday, turnout in the 25 western counties affected by the hurricane was even stronger at 59% of registered voters, state election board Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell said.
Where to Vote
Election Day Voting
Minnesotans can vote in-person at their local polling place on Tuesday, November 5. Find a polling place at mnvotes.gov/pollfinder. All polling places are open until 8 p.m. As long as voters are in line by 8 p.m. they can vote. In Minnesota, people can register to vote on election day.
To be eligible to vote, a person must be 18 or older by Election Day, a U.S. Citizen, a resident of Minnesota for at least 20 days, not currently incarcerated for a felony conviction, and not under a court order that revokes your right to vote.
Text or Call with Election Questions
Minnesotans can contact the Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State by phone call or text message. They can call 1-877-600-VOTE (8683) or text 651-217-3862 to get information from an election worker.
The service is available until 8 p.m. on Tuesday, November 5.
For 2025 coverage, Minnesota Women’s Press earned a community leadership award, three photography awards, and four editorial awards, including for coverage of social issues and for our Spring 2025 “Know Your Rights” special section supported by Unidos MN. Our publisher was named Journalist of the Year by Violence Free Minnesota for gender-based violence coverage.
