Democrat wins Minnesota House special election to replace assassinated leader

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Democrat Xp Lee won a special election Tuesday to fill the Minnesota House seat of a top Democratic leader who was assassinated, restoring a 67-67 tie and preserving a power-sharing deal that has forced both parties to work together.

Rep. Melissa Hortman, of Brooklyn Park, held the seat until her death in June.

Lee is a former Brooklyn Park City Council member. He defeated Republican real estate agent Ruth Bittner in the heavily Democratic district.

Lee promised he would “work hard every day” to honor Hortman’s legacy.

“We did our best to make her proud: knocking on doors daily, making phone calls, and texting every neighbor we could,” Lee said in a victory statement.

Lee’s win maintains a power-sharing arrangement that existed for most of the 2025 legislative session, after the 2024 elections cost House Democrats their majority.

Former House Speaker Hortman brokered that agreement, which ended Democrats’ three-week boycott. Under the deal, she agreed to end her six-year tenure as speaker and let Republican Lisa Demuth take the position. Hortman then took the title speaker emerita. Most legislative committees became evenly split between Republican and Democratic members, with co-chairs from each party.

The tie in the House meant some level of bipartisan agreement was required to pass anything in this year’s session.

In an indication of the national interest in the race, Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said Lee’s “commitment to expanding access to education, affordable health care, and good-paying jobs honors the legacy” of Hortman.

“Across Minnesota, our hearts are still broken by the horrific assassination that stole Melissa and her husband Mark,” Martin, who formerly chaired the state Democratic Party, said in a statement. “Political violence is a scourge that has taken far too many lives. Enough is enough. It must end now. And in every case, each of us has a responsibility to condemn and reject political violence wherever it rears its head.”

Hortman’s newly elected successor as the top Democrat in the Minnesota House, Rep. Zack Stephenson, said Lee’s victory restores their caucus to full strength ahead of a potential special session that Gov. Tim Walz wants to call to address school security and gun violence following a shooting at a church last month that left two students dead and 21 people injured.

“That means we’ll prioritize the safety of our kids instead of access to weapons of war, and we’ll make our economy work better for all Minnesotans, not just the billionaires,” Stephenson, who was a close ally of Hortman, said in a statement.

The election to replace Hortman came about three months after she and her husband were gunned down in their home by a man impersonating a police officer in Brooklyn Park, a suburb northwest of Minneapolis. Another legislator and his wife also were shot but survived.

Vance Boelter, 57, faces federal and state murder, attempted murder and other charges in the June 14 attacks.

Tuesday’s special election also follows another act of political violence, the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Utah last Wednesday. The shootings have been a concern among voters in the district — and for both candidates.

Lee said last week that he wants to calm the “charged atmosphere” in the wake of Kirk’s death.

Bittner said the violence briefly gave her pause about running for office, but she concluded that “there’s no way to solve this problem if we shrink back in fear.”

Two more special elections will be held Nov. 4 in a pair of Minnesota Senate districts.

One is to fill the seat vacated by Democratic Sen. Nicole Mitchell, of the St. Paul suburb of Woodbury. She resigned in July after she was convicted of burglarizing her estranged stepmother’s home. The other is for the seat of Republican Sen. Bruce Anderson, of the Minneapolis exurb of Buffalo, who died in July.

Given that the districts are heavily Democratic and heavily Republican, respectively, control of the Senate isn’t expected to change. But the Democratic candidate for Mitchell’s seat is state Rep. Amanda Hemmingsen-Jaeger, of Woodbury. If she wins, the governor will have to call another special election to fill her House seat.

Steve Karnowski, The Associated Press