Tag: activist participation in democracy

GOP’s Jeff Johnson, DFL’s Tim Walz get wins in tests at Minnesota caucus meetings

The following article by J. Patrick Coolican was posted on the StarTribune website February 7, 2018:

Party activists weighed in for the first time on the governor’s race in a busy year for state politics.

Stefan Peterson asked a DFL precinct caucus meeting at Eden Prairie High School for a show of hands Tuesday night on who would be willing to serve as delegates to the next party convention. Credit: Glen Stubbe, Star Tribune

Republican Jeff Johnson and DFLer Tim Walz scored victories Tuesday with party activists who weighed in for the first time in this year’s governor’s race, as Minnesotans by the thousands turned out at precinct caucuses that start the march toward one of the most consequential state elections in years.

Walz, a U.S. congressman from Mankato, was leading Tuesday night by a commanding margin in the nonbinding straw poll of DFL voters. Johnson, the Hennepin County Commission from Plymouth, was winning the GOP straw poll with an even bigger margin, with more than two out of five Republicans favoring him. Continue reading “GOP’s Jeff Johnson, DFL’s Tim Walz get wins in tests at Minnesota caucus meetings”