With 16 mayoral candidates on the ballot this year, Minneapolis voters could have ranked over 5,800 potential combinations of first-, second- and third-choice votes.
But nearly 1 in 5 voters chose the same approach: they ranked Mayor Jacob Frey. And no one else.
About 18% of Minneapolis voters cast ballots that only ranked Frey, the most common ballot combination in the 2025 mayor’s race. Frey alone was also the most popular ballot combination in 2021, with about 20% of ballots.
Only 4% of voters this year ranked Sen. Omar Fateh and nobody else.
Minneapolis has used ranked-choice voting in municipal elections since 2009. Supporters of the system have argued that it leads to the election of candidates with broad support.
But “undervoting,” or leaving a choice blank, is common. And in the past two elections, Frey’s challengers have attempted to use a system designed to reward consensus into a strategy of collective opposition.
Frey’s challengers banded together, campaigning behind a “slate for change.” The campaigns sent mailers to Minneapolis residences with sample ballots ranking Fateh, DeWayne Davis and Jazz Hampton as first, second and third choices, respectively.
That exact order was the second-most-common ballot.
