Minneapolis Ward 2 election could play pivotal role in City Council control

An election battle brewing in one of the most liberal parts of Minneapolis has a democratic socialist City Council member seeking a third term against a challenge from a former state lawmaker backed by the city’s comparatively moderate coalition.

Incumbent Council Member Robin Wonsley, one of Mayor Jacob Frey’s primary antagonists, is facing a challenge from Shelley Madore, who carries the backing — and funding — of Frey-aligned groups.

With fundraising totals showing it’s the second-most expensive race in the city, the race appears to be the biggest push in several years by Frey’s coalition to disrupt the progressive majority on the council in one of its strongholds. Depending on how several other key races shake out, Ward 2, which includes the area in and around the University of Minnesota, could prove to be a tie-breaking seat on the 13-member council.

The Minneapolis DFL didn’t endorse anyone in this race — the outcome sought by Wonsley, who has described herself as both independent and democratic socialist but has eschewed the label of Democrat.

The 35,000 residents of the ward live in the Cedar-Riverside, Como, Marcy Holmes, Prospect Park-East River Road and Seward neighborhoods, as well as the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota and Augsburg University.

Wonsley, who’s running for her third term, says her priority is to make Minneapolis inclusive and affordable. She’s targeting high housing costs and food insecurity, saying too many of the university students in her ward struggle with food costs. “I want to make sure all of my residents, regardless of their racial background, or immigration status, that they have the ability to afford a good quality of life in Ward 2 and in our city,” she said.

The city “needs to look at how we’re bringing in additional revenue to meet those needs,” she said in a recent interview. “How do we leverage taxes on the rich?” Wonsley said she’s prepared to work with whoever wins the mayor’s race this fall — and says her track record shows that she’s done so during her time in office — but she’s a supporter of DSA mayoral candidate Omar Fateh and has strong critiques of Frey’s management style and handling of the city’s homelessness crisis and on housing issues.

Wonsley said she’s proud of her donor base, saying the $50,494 she’s raised has come from working-class people, while flagging her opponent for taking donations from out-of-state business owners, property developers and property managers. Madore has raised $50,496. Both totals are through July 28, the most recent data available.

For her track record, Wonsley is pointing to increases in public housing funding, a plan for an urban farm on a former industrial site known as the Roof Depot, and supporting the city’s Behavior Crisis Response Team, sidewalk plowing, carbon fees for the city’s largest polluters, and a minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers. She also points to voting to reduce the mayor’s proposed property tax levy increase from 8.3 to 6.9 percent last year.

Wonsley’s endorsements run from elected officials Ilhan Omar and Keith Ellison and others to labor unions, the DSA and the University of Minnesota college Democrats. Wonsley won her first term by 14 votes out of nearly 10,000 cast and easily won her second. A Carleton graduate, Wonsley is on leave from Ph.D. studies in gender, women and sexuality at the University of Minnesota.

Challenger Shelley Madore served one term in the Legislature, representing District 37A, Apple Valley-Burnsville, from 2007–2009. She was a co-author of a bill that established four-hour street parking in cities, including Minneapolis, for disabled drivers. Madore, who has two adult children with disabilities, said the two-hour maximum wasn’t enough time for disabled people to get in and out of their medical appointments.

Madore was also known for the so-called ‘Madore amendment’ that redirected sales tax revenue from leased cars to her district and other metro cities outside of Minneapolis and St. Paul for road construction and maintenance. She lost re-election to a Republican candidate and in 2010 ran for Congress, where she won the primary despite losing the DFL endorsement and then got crushed by Republican incumbent John Kline.

Madore said she’s been working on issues in Minneapolis for years as a legislator and community activist supporting people with disabilities, transportation projects and bringing people to Minneapolis. She said she knows the ward from spending years following her children as they graduated from the University of Minnesota and Augsburg University. She’s billing herself as a pragmatic politician who wants to work on solutions.

“What I hear from people is that they are ready for change,” said Madore. “They are done with grandstanding.”

Madore said she’d like to see the expansion of Metro micro transit into Ward 2. The program offers door-to-door transportation on smaller buses, sometimes shared with other riders, and can be beneficial for people with disabilities. She also wants to see the city get a better handle on landlord issues — and improve city inspections of rental properties.

The Ward 2 race also includes DFLer candidate Max Theroux, who says his family hails from the Como neighborhood and that he knows renter issues from his own experience. He was a University of Minnesota student senator and has worked in retail for 7 years. A fourth candidate, Michael Baskins, dropped out after ballots had been printed.