Frey’s rivals unite behind anyone-but-him strategy in contest for mayor

In mid-September at the Lake Harriet Band Shell, three candidates vying to be the next mayor of Minneapolis — Omar Fateh, the Rev. DeWayne Davis and Jazz Hampton — stood together and urged voters to “rank all three” when voters cast their ballots under the city’s ranked-choice voting system.

The moment captured something rare in local politics: rivals campaigning as a team. Calling themselves a “slate for change,” the three men told voters to treat them not as competitors but as allies in their bid to unseat Mayor Jacob Frey.

Their strategy is straightforward: If one challenger is eliminated, votes transfer to another — and keep support inside the same anti-incumbent bloc.

It’s a new twist on the RCV playbook, turning a system designed to reward consensus into a strategy for collective opposition. Yet it has also created some strange bedfellows in a city where even small differences among competing left-of-center ideologies are often fiercely debated.

Minneapolis adopted ranked-choice voting in 2009, eliminating its low-turnout August primary and allowing voters to rank candidates in a single November election.

Voters can rank up to three candidates. If no one wins a majority of first-choice votes, the last-place finisher is eliminated, and those ballots are redistributed to the next available choice. The process repeats until someone crosses 50%.

Jeanne Massey, executive director of FairVote Minnesota and a longtime champion of ranked-choice voting, said turnout in city general elections has roughly doubled since the system was adopted and elections moved to November, rising from about 25% in pre-2009 cycles to more than 50% in recent contests.

In ranked-choice contests, cooperation can be a form of self-preservation. Candidates who get voters’ second- and third-choice support are less likely to be eliminated early — and more likely to inherit votes when others drop out. Massey said the system naturally pushes candidates to cooperate.

“We’ve seen two-person alliances before,” she said. “What’s new this year is an explicit slate of three.”

In 2021, she added, efforts to consolidate the anti-Frey vote were less defined — candidates shared overlapping messages but never framed themselves as a unified coalition. Frey won that race in the second round of counting.

Massey compared this year’s coordination to a strategy used in New York City, where state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani and City Comptroller Brad Lander publicly urged supporters to rank each other during the city’s first ranked-choice mayoral election. Mamdani prevailed in the third round of counting.

“That explicit coalition-building can be powerful,” Massey said.

“It is clear that the race will come down to the mayor and Senator Fateh, and we’re campaigning accordingly,” campaign spokesman Darwin Forsyth said.

Onstage at Lake Harriet, the three candidates’ criticisms of Frey overlapped, but their policy approaches differed.

Fateh supports rent control, “just cause” eviction protections and stronger tenant rights. Davis emphasizes neighborhood investment, community safety and broader systemic reforms without endorsing rent caps. Hampton casts himself as a unifier focused on improving city services, addressing the housing crisis and bridging political divides.

On the issue of public safety, Fateh and Davis have been highly critical of Frey. Fateh supported the 2021 ballot question to dismantle the city’s police department, though he has since moderated his position.

Hampton is arguably more aligned with Frey on the issue. Asked last month whether he’s to the right or left of Frey when it comes to policing, he answered, “We both run the West Coast offense; I just would implement it better.”

“That’s what sparked the outcry,” she said. “A lot of council members wanted to throw events for all three candidates and create a slate for change.”

Even within the coalition, the language of unity carries its own divisions.

Mitchell was careful to note that Hampton’s campaign avoids overt anti-Frey messaging — a striking distinction given the alliance’s shared goal of replacing him.

“We do not say, ‘Don’t rank Frey,’” she said. “We’re trying to build a wide coalition across the city.”

That balancing act — joining a campaign defined by opposition while refusing its sharper edges — reflects the complexities of ranked choice politics. Candidates must court first-choice enthusiasm without alienating potential second- and third-choice voters. For Mitchell, that means emphasizing participation over partisanship.

The ranked-choice arithmetic is both opportunity and risk. Because lower-ranked votes transfer only as candidates are eliminated, coalitions can overtake early front-runners in later rounds. Frey’s strategy focuses on locking in first-choice support to avoid relying on those transfers — a bet that a solid base will outweigh shifting alliances.

In practice, Massey said, that dynamic forces campaigns to think beyond first-place votes.

“Every candidate has to understand where their second- and third-choice opportunities are,” she said. “They need as many first choices as possible, but to win, they’ll need those later preferences too.”

This year’s contest, she said, will show whether a formalized “rank-all-three” effort can translate coordination into victory.