Olson: St. Paul Mayor-elect Kaohly Her emerges as a new Minnesota star

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No one should ever again underestimate St. Paul’s Mayor-elect Kaohly Her.

That sounds obvious now that Her, a Hmong immigrant from Laos who arrived in this country as a toddler, became the first woman and Hmong person elected mayor of the city Tuesday night. But let’s take a moment to appreciate where Her came from and what she’s accomplished, and to savor this moment of possibility.

Her toppled two-term DFL incumbent Mayor Melvin Carter III, a legacy politician. His father, Melvin Jr., was a St. Paul cop, and his mother, Toni Carter, was a longtime Ramsey County commissioner who is now a member of the Metropolitan Council.

Her, who has a professional background in financial services, took her first job in politics as a policy aide to Carter. She’s been in the Minnesota House since 2019 and was a confidante and ally to the late DFL Speaker Melissa Hortman.

One of Her’s biggest public moments came in June when she declared from the House floor, “I am illegal in this country,” telling the story of her Hmong parents’ perilous journey from Laos after the “Secret War.”

At the outset, Her seemed reluctant to go after her former boss. Improbably, she declined to hammer Carter on the easy topic of soaring property taxes, nor did she serve up platitudes or sound bites about how she would cure to the woes of downtown, open drug use and struggling commercial corners.

For much of the past three months, it almost seemed as though Her was unwilling to offer a strong enough contrast to Carter. Her critique of him was more nuanced. She said Carter lacked vision and had utterly failed to build the coalitions and do the outreach necessary to get the city on track.

Behind the scenes, however, Her was doing the grunt work of talking to voters where they live. She locked down support in the Southeast Asian community. She won the endorsement of the Firefighters Local 21, and they doorknocked on her behalf.

There is much to analyze about the significance and symbolism of Her beating an incumbent and taking over at City Hall at this moment in our country.

What is undeniable at the core, however, is Her. She’s a 52-year-old woman who earned an MBA, built generational wealth for her family and celebrated at a victory party at Sweeney’s Saloon, an old-school bar situated between Her’s current Summit Avenue home and the more challenged spaces along Selby and University avenues.