Next Tuesday is primary day in Minnesota. Apart from the fights for school board and Hennepin County commissioner, the other notable local race is in North Minneapolis.

Six candidates are registered to run for the seat now occupied by Rep. Bobby Joe Champion, who is vying for Sen. Linda Higgins' vacated senate seat. Higgins is running for Hennepin County commissioner.

Only four of those North Minneapolis House District 59B candidates have filed campaign finance reports, however. The race to watch is the DFL primary, which has no clear favorite but will likely decide the winner of the seat this November.

State campaign finance reports show that attorney Ian Alexander is winning the money race, raising more than $18,000 as of July 23. But his background as a Republican has drawn skepticism from at least one liberal blog. After all, among other things he was Deputy Director for Delegate Tracking at the 2008 RNC.

"The more time I spent actually working as a family law attorney in North Minneapolis, the more I began to see that a lot of the policies of the Republican Party were not particularly helping people in my community," Alexander said in an interview. He is open to raising taxes on the wealthy and is an outspoken opponent of the marriage amendment.

Council Members Barb Johnson, Don Samuels, and Lisa Goodman, former U.S. Rep. Martin Olav Sabo, and Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman are all backing Alexander. So is the building trade union and the teamsters.

He's a bit unnerved by the backlash from some DFL activists over his Republican past. "It's like this purity test you have to go through, which I find completely disturbing," Alexander said.

One other biographical point: Alexander's house was destroyed in last year's tornado.

Runner-up in the money race is Ray Dehn, an architect and activist who has been recently active on North Side transit issues. Dehn pulled in $14,600 as of July 23rd, and has snagged endorsements from prominent unions and U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison.

Terra Cole, a senior planning analyst with Hennepin County, isn't far behind. Cole raised $13,160 as of the last reporting period. She has been endorsed by longtime Rep. Phyllis Kahn, Council Member Diane Hofstede and former Minneapolis mayor Sharon Sayles-Belton.

The Republican candidate, Gary Mazzotta, has raised about $1,775. He has a challenger in the primary, but they do not appear to have raised any money.