Roper: What an Election Day bike ride to every ward in Minneapolis taught me about Jacob Frey’s re-election

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After a campaign focused on the candidates, Election Day is squarely about the voters.

So I set out to find as many of them as I could on Tuesday — to understand what’s really going on in the Minneapolis zeitgeist. The plan was fairly simple: bicycle to one precinct in all 13 wards of the city. For added flavor, I crafted a “Mobile Newsroom” wooden sign to hang off my bike at each stop.

The roughly 50 voters I interviewed over more than 12 hours pedaling in a big circle around Minneapolis turned out to be part of a historic turnout for a city election. I chatted with them in the chilly morning hours at a southwest Minneapolis park, over the lunch rush at a Loring Park school, in the quiet afternoon at a Northeast senior complex, and amid the sunset bustle of college students outside an art museum.

Now that Jacob Frey has won reelection, the conversations give me better insight into what happened.

A lot of voters who ranked Frey as their first choice mentioned that he was the most moderate candidate and their top priority was public safety. Some have been shaken by bubbling neighborhood crime, including car windows being smashed. They were choosing experience and stability.

“I think with the state of the [federal] government, I just want consistency,” said Kaitlyn Joyce outside of the Harrison Recreation Center in north Minneapolis. “There’s too much in flux.”

“We’re middle class, retired. So the cost of government and things like crime are important to us,” Schmitt said.

Bernard Walters was proudly supporting the mayor (whom he called “the standard bearer”) as he entered Lucy Craft Laney Elementary School in north Minneapolis. “I think he didn’t have enough people to work with him,” Walters said, adding that “the third time is the charm.”

In the dark, outside a church in Longfellow, Andrea Wright confided that she was conflicted over whether to swap leadership at City Hall amid more crime in her neighborhood over the last several years. She chose Frey. So did Mark Steele, standing beside her. “To me it seems like if anyone’s going to be able to effect change, it would be him continuing because he’s not starting at zero,” Steele said.

Sometimes, it’s the little things. One man highlighted the mayor visiting his apartment and regularly appearing in a local parade. A woman who said she’s always liked Frey mentioned she has a photo of herself with the mayor.

Frey’s top challenger Omar Fateh is Somali American. But the Somali community was not of one mind about the election.

“He’s very big in our community,” voter Salma Hassan told me outside Brian Coyle, referring to the mayor. “It’s a very hard vote, actually, for the Somali community.”

The 23-year-old Hassan was excited to cast a vote for Fateh, who for her embodies a younger generation. “I’m so tired of voting for the old-timers and nothing changes,” Hassan said.

Which brings me to all the reasons people didn’t give first-choice support to Frey, known to some people I met as the “boy king” and “little egomaniac.”

“Frey’s been a disaster. He’s inconsistent. [He] vetoes things just to veto things,” said Bruce Leier, a DeWayne Davis supporter outside the Powderhorn Recreation Center.

A lot of people supporting Davis and Jazz Hampton mentioned gridlock at City Hall and the need to change things up. (Two people in separate parts of town used the words “even-keeled” to describe Davis.)

By contrast, many Fateh supporters were energized by specific elements of his platform — from rent control and the minimum wage to a different approach toward addressing homelessness.

“I really value how much Omar Fateh shows that he actually cares about the homeless population of Minneapolis,” said University of Minnesota student Devin Heppenstall outside a polling place at Weisman Art Museum.

As journalism stunts go, the citywide Election Day ride was educational. It was frenzied behind the scenes, however, as I struggled to keep up with a tight timetable, dying batteries and juggling all the tech for social media videos.