MINNEAPOLIS — Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey won a second term, defeating opponents who aligned against him in a campaign focusing heavily on his track record on policing.
City officials announced Wednesday afternoon that Frey won after two rounds of ranked-choice voting tabulation. Challenger Kate Knuth came in second in the final round, pulling in 38% of votes compared to Frey's 49%.
Knuth, a former state legislator and sustainability scholar, had aligned with community organizer Sheila Nezhad in a campaign urging voters not to rank the incumbent mayor who, they argued, had done too little to change policing before and after George Floyd's killing.
Frey begins a second term with more power than any mayor in recent memory. Voters also approved a charter change that designates the mayor as the city's chief executive and prohibits council members from interfering with the mayor's supervision of most departments.
The pack of mayoral hopefuls spent months locked in an expensive fight over who would lead the city at a critical moment. The race was entwined with a debate over the future of policing and public safety in the city.
Frey had dramatically outspent his opponents headed into Election Day, although Nezhad, Knuth, AJ Awed and Clint Conner had each raised tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in the battle for the city's top post.
The municipal election had drawn far more attention — and money — than a typical race. Minnesotans and people across the country had been watching to see whether the city where police killed Floyd and where violent crime has been on the rise would opt to replace its Police Department.
While the debate over public safety dominated the mayor's race, a question of whether to grant the mayor more power also brought extra money and attention to the election. The court-appointed Charter Commission, which crafted the proposal, argued that the city needed to better define its structure to avoid the kinds of power struggles that had hampered staffers' ability to respond to crises like the coronavirus pandemic and Floyd's killing. Opponents said they feared the change would limit the impact of council members who represent the most diverse wards, which historically often had lower turnout in citywide races.
Frey supported the change. Knuth and Nezhad opposed it. Political committees waging expensive campaigns over policing also took opposite stances on the question of the mayor's power. A new group called Charter for Change formed specifically to encourage people to vote for the strong mayor system. It received more than $130,000 in the months leading up to the election, primarily from the Minneapolis Regional Chamber's development fund.
Kathleen O'Brien, a former Minneapolis City Council member who helped form the group, described the election as "historic" and said the debate over the structure of city government has been ongoing for more than 100 years.
"The voters and the people of Minneapolis did their homework," O'Brien said. "They sorted through the all the issues and voted to strengthen our government."
Frey, on Tuesday, echoed those sentiments: "I would say it's one of the most important parts of this entire election because it allows us to get real and serious ... it will allow us to have a delineation between who's in charge, and I think that'll also push back in a lot of the silly disagreements that we've seen over the last year and a half."
The mayor will immediately have to navigate demands to increase accountability for police on the heels of a decisive vote rejecting a proposal to replace the city's Police Department. Frey told supporters Tuesday night that police reform is happening under his administration and must continue. He said changing the culture in the Minneapolis Police Department starts with replacing bad cops with good ones.
"There was this push to defund the police," Frey said. "That movement has been roundly rejected, all of us now, can stop with the hashtags and the slogans and the simplicity and say, 'Alright, let's all unite around things that we all agree on.'"
Frey, Awed and Conner had all opposed the charter amendment to replace the Police Department, while Nezhad and Knuth supported it. Nezhad and Knuth had partnered on a ranked-choice voting gambit that some dubbed the "Don't Rank Frey" effort, in which they encouraged voters to rank the two of them and leave the incumbent off their ballots.
Knuth told supporters at an election night event that while she is disappointed the public safety department charter amendment failed, she will remain committed to making Minneapolis a city where everyone feels safe.
The 17 mayoral candidates' campaigns have spent more than $1.4 million on the race this year, more than half of which was spent by the Frey campaign, according to campaign finance filings from last week. That tally does not show the full picture of spending on the heated race. Outside groups for or against the public safety charter amendment had also funneled dollars toward the candidates.
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(Star Tribune staff writers Jessie Van Berkel and Briana Bierschbach contributed to this report.)
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