Dakota county election shows MN’s shifting politics
Drilling down into local politics, we find an interesting story in the south Metro, illustrating a number of trends in state politics.
The seven members of the Dakota County Board of Commissioners serve staggered terms, and each represents around 64,000 people. Three of the seven seats are up this November.
Dakota is the state’s third-largest county by population.
Only one of the three commissioner races featured a primary election this August, District 5 covers the Burnsville area and has been represented by the incumbent Liz Workman since 2009.
The primary for District 5 last month featured four candidates, including a former state representative.
Workman prevailed in the open primary with more than half of the vote. Yet rather than being declared the election winner, she will face the primary runner-up in the general election in November. Turnout in the district was reported at a little over 10 percent of registered voters.
Burnsville resident Yusuf Haji finished in second place with a little over 25 percent of the primary vote and will face Workman on the November ballot.
This is Haji’s third try for public office, having run twice before when he lived in Minneapolis. Back in April, I profiled Haji and his three-degrees-of-separation connections to some of the controversies of the day here.
On a related note, earlier this month, the Burnsville community celebrated the opening of a new business, the Leonura Event Center.
The ribbon cutting was covered by the Somali TV media outlet, which posted dozens of pictures on its Facebook page:
That’s the Burnsville mayor in the middle of the ribbon cutting, above left. The mayor herself is on the ballot in November, running for her 10th term helming the city, having served in that office for the past thirty years.
The man in the blue jacket standing next to the mayor appears to be Yusuf Haji, the candidate.
Officially, all of these local offices are nonpartisan, but increasingly they are taking on a partisan edge. Haji touts his many Democratic party (DFL) endorsements on his campaign’s Twitter (X) account and website.
The woman holding the red ribbon on the other side of the mayor appears to be Haji’s spouse. She is, apparently, the proprietress of the Event Center. The Event Center is available for rental and a tour of the center can be seen in this TikTok video,
State Rep Kayla Berg (DFL-Burnsville) appears to be the figure standing between the Mayor and Haji’s spouse. Berg is among the Democratic politicians who have endorsed Haji’s candidacy.
In this Facebook photo, on the far right, you can spot a man wearing a Kayla Berg campaign shirt.
The new event center is located in the lower level of this Burnsville office building:
The District 5 August primary race attracted attention from statewide media outlets, including the Minnesota Star Tribune, Mshale, and the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
In an interview with MShale, published in early August, which notes the “all-white” composition of the current county board, Haji, a Kenyan immigrant, is quoted as follows:
“I want to represent the voices that are not currently represented on the board of commissioners,” Mr. Haji said in a virtual interview with Mshale recently. “Not in a confrontational way, but more of educating and making sure county residents understand the new diverse community that is now here.”
Early voting for the November election begins this Friday, September 20.