What to know about the special DFL primary to fill Melissa Hortman’s House seat

Voters in Brooklyn Park and nearby suburbs next week will choose which Democrat could fill the legislative seat held by House DFL Leader Rep. Melissa Hortman, who was assassinated alongside her husband, Mark, in June.

Three candidates are competing in the Democratic primary that will be held on Aug. 12. The winner has a strong chance to win the special election in September; Hortman won re-election with more than 60% of the vote in her last two races.

The winner of the race will face Republican Ruth Bittner, a real estate agent and political newcomer, in September. No other Republicans registered to run for the seat.

House District 34B is largely centered around Brooklyn Park, but it also includes several precincts in Coon Rapids and Champlin.

The DFL candidates are Brooklyn Park City Council Member Christian Eriksen; Xp Lee, a former member of the Brooklyn Park City Council; and Erickson Saye, a prosecutor in Hennepin County.

All three have nodded to the grave circumstances that led to the special election and have said they hope not to replace Hortman but follow in her footsteps.

Lee heads into the primary with the advantage of the DFL endorsement in the race. He grew up in Fresno, Calif., and attended college in South Carolina before moving to the Twin Cities in the 2000s to be closer to relatives and a larger Hmong community.

“Now we have a really bubbly and bright five-month-old,” he said.

Lee said he wants to support economic development in his district if he’s elected, including a planned BioTech Innovation District near highways 169 and 610. He supports the Blue Line Extension light rail project, which is currently facing an uncertain future, and the conversion of Highway 252 to a four-lane freeway.

Saye was born in Liberia and moved with his family to Minnesota during the country’s civil war. Motivated by his mother, who worked three jobs and raised Saye and his siblings as a single mom, he attended Concordia University in St. Paul and Augsburg University and earned a law degree and a master’s degree in public policy at Loyola in Chicago.

His resume includes work as an organizer for the DFL in Brooklyn Park, for Gov. Tim Walz as a public engagement liaison, and as a youth prosecutor in the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office. If he wins a seat in the Legislature, he said he will push for more resources for youth intervention programs.

“If we can be proactive before there’s harm or before there’s damage, I think will really help our society and help Brooklyn Park,” he said.

He currently lives in Brooklyn Park with his spouse and two young children.

Eriksen is a lifelong resident of Brooklyn Park, where he now lives with his spouse and six children. He’s served on the City Council since 2022 and said he wants to protect some of the DFL-passed policies and programs from the last few years, such as free school lunches and LGBTQ protections.

“I definitely see DFL control of both the Legislature and the executive [branch] as being the last line of defense for a lot of things that we’ve worked really hard to accomplish in Minnesota in the last few years,” Eriksen said.

He also wants to increase aid to local governments and boost spending on state construction projects in first-rung suburbs like Brooklyn Park.

Voters can request absentee ballots on the Secretary of State’s website; Hennepin County officials recommend dropping them off at the Hennepin County Government Center. Residents of Brooklyn Park and Champlin can also drop ballots at their respective city halls. County residents can also vote early at those locations.

Democrats are trying to hold Hortman’s seat and re-establish the 67-67 tie with Republicans in the House. A win by Bittner in September would give Republicans control.