The Weekly Wrap 2-23

February 23, 2014

♣ Another Minnesota legislator has announced her retirement: Longtime Republican state Rep. Mary Liz Holberg, a conservative leader on privacy, budget and other issues, announced Saturday morning that she would not run for a ninth term. Holberg represented house district 58A, centered in Lakeville. 58A is an R+11 district according to hPVI, so most of […]

by Tony Petrangelo

The Weekly Wrap 2-16

February 16, 2014

♣ The Republican Minority Leader of the Minnesota House, Kurt Daudt, will not get a free pass to endorsement this year: Oak Grove Mayor Mark Korin said today that he has filed the campaign paperwork and will seek the GOP endorsement. Korin is serving his fourth year as mayor of Oak Grove and runs an […]

by Tony Petrangelo

Top 10 most vulnerable Minnesota house Republicans

January 29, 2014

There will be an election later this year. At the top of the ticket will be races for United States Senate and Minnesota Governor, as well as the three other constitutional offices in Minnesota; Secretary of State, Attorney General and Auditor. And of course all eight of our United States congressional seats will be subject […]

by Tony Petrangelo

The Weekly Wrap 1-19

January 19, 2014

♣ In a move that was shocking to pretty much no one, Lt. Governor Yvonne Prettner Solon announced on Monday that she will not be part of the DFL Gubernatorial ticket in 2014. The question now is who will join the Dayton re-election ticket. And while I have no idea who that will be, there […]

by Tony Petrangelo

The Weekly Wrap 12-22

December 22, 2013

♣ It’s that time of year, where the retirements of incumbent legislators start coming in bunches. Already this year Rep. Michael Paymar (64B) and Rep. Andrea Kieffer (53B) have both announced their retirements. And Rep. Mike Benson (26B), who is running for the GOP endorsement to take on Tim Walz in Minnesota’s first congressional district […]

by Tony Petrangelo

The Weekly Wrap 12-15

December 15, 2013

If you’re wondering why The Weekly Wrap™ is now being published on Sunday, when it had been published on Saturday for awhile, and before that it was published on Friday for a time. The answer is, simply, that The Weekly Wrap™ leads a leisured lifestyle wherein these types of things are not a concern. Time […]

by Tony Petrangelo

The Weekly Wrap 11-23

November 23, 2013

♣ The Minnesota Jobs Coalition, the intrepid dark money group started by friend of the now-defunct LeftMN Radio Hour, Ben Golnik, released a polling memo, let’s take a look: Tarrance Group (11/21, no trend lines): Do you think Minnesota’s U.S. Senator Al Franken has done a good enough job to deserve re-election, or is it […]

by Tony Petrangelo

The Weekly Wrap 11-17

November 17, 2013

♣ The big story that dropped in last Sunday’s edition of the StarTribune was that the electronic campaign finance records curated by the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board were riddled with errors: About 7,000 records of donations between Minnesota groups are incorrect — an error rate of about one in seven. Electronic records […]

by Tony Petrangelo

The Weekly Wrap 11-9

November 9, 2013

It’s been a few weeks since I did The Wrap™, having been distracted by new polls the last two weeks. But The Wrap™ returns, to do it’s Wrapy thing once again and all of Minnesota Politicoland rejoices. ♣ First off, the unofficial election results from the elections on Tuesday in Minneapolis that had to go […]

by Tony Petrangelo

A Brief History of Ideology in the Minnesota Legislature

June 6, 2013

Last week I took a look at a new metric that attempts to measure the relative Ideology of state Legislatures and Legislators. Called “np_score” and developed by Boris Shor and Nolan McCarty (their website is at Measuring American Legislatures) the metric ranges from roughly -2 (very liberal) to +2 (very conservative). This metric is derived […]

by Tony Petrangelo

Ideology Scores for State Legislatures

May 29, 2013

In which I discover some new numbers to geek-out about

by Tony Petrangelo

The Weekly Wrap 3-8

March 8, 2013

This week featured the formation of a part red part blue caucus, the discovery of election fraud in Minnesota and Norm Coleman bowing out of running in 2014

by Tony Petrangelo