2020 Minnesota State Senate election

← 2016 November 3, 2020 2022 →
All 67 seats in theMinnesota Senate 34 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	79.98% 5.26pp
Majority party Minority party   Leader Paul Gazelka Susan Kent Party Republican Democratic (DFL) Leader since November 10, 2016 February 1, 2020 Leader's seat 9th–Nisswa 53rd–Woodbury Last election 34 seats, 48.96% 33 seats, 50.12% Seats before 35 32 Seats won 34 33 Seat change 1 1 Popular vote 1,532,446 1,577,523 Percentage 48.39% 49.82% Swing 0.57pp 0.30pp
Results:      Republican hold     Republican gain      DFL hold     DFL gain Vote share:      40–50%     50–60%     60–70%      50–60%     60–70%     70–80%     80–90%     >90%
Majority Leader before election Paul Gazelka Republican ElectedMajority Leader Paul Gazelka Republican

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v t e

The2020 Minnesota Senate election was held in theU.S. state ofMinnesota on November 3, 2020, to elect members to theSenate of the 92nd Minnesota Legislature. A primary election was held in several districts on August 11, 2020. The election coincided with theelection of the other house of theLegislature, theHouse of Representatives, andother elections.

Thelast election in 2016 resulted in theRepublican Party of Minnesota winning a majority of seats, after losing a majority to theMinnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) only four years earlier in theprevious election in 2012. In conjunction with the result of theHouse election, it also resulted in the return of all-Republican control of the Legislature for the first time since 2012, and only the second time Republicans had had majorities in both houses since the return of partisan elections to the Senate in 1976. Control of the Senate had alternated between the Republicans and the DFL every election since2010. All-Republican control of the Legislature ended when the DFL won a majority in the House in2018.

Aspecial election was held for District 11 on February 5, 2019, as a result of the resignation of incumbent DFL SenatorTony Lourey after he was selected to be the next commissioner of human services byGovernor-electTim Walz in early January 2019.^[1] Republican state representativeJason Rarick won the special election, increasing the Republican majority to 35 seats.^[2]

In October 2020,The Washington Post identified this state election as one of eight whose outcomes could affectpartisan balance during post-censusredistricting.^[3]

The 67 members of the Senate were elected fromsingle-member districts viafirst-past-the-post voting for two-year terms. Contested nominations of recognized major parties (DFL,Grassroots–Legalize Cannabis,Legal Marijuana Now, andRepublican) for each district were determined by anopen primary election. Minor party candidates were nominated by petition.Write-in candidates must have filed a request with thesecretary of state's office for votes for them to be counted. The filing period was from May 19 to June 2, 2020.^[4]

• Paul Anderson, 44th^[5]
• Scott Jensen, 47th^[6]

• Carolyn Laine, 41st^[7]
• Dick Cohen, 64th^[8]

A primary election was held on August 11 in 16 districts to nominate Republican and DFL candidates. Four Republican nominations and 13 DFL nominations were contested. Nine incumbents were opposed for their party's nomination. DFL incumbentsErik Simonson in District 7 andJeff Hayden in District 62 were not renominated.^[9][10]

Party		Candidates	Votes			Seats
			No.	%	+/−	No.	+/−	%
	Republican Party of Minnesota	67	1,532,446	48.39	−0.57	34	−1	50.75
	Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party	65	1,577,523	49.82	−0.30	33	+1	49.25
	Legal Marijuana Now Party	7	29,841	0.94	+0.62	0	0	0.00
	Grassroots–Legalize Cannabis Party	6	17,291	0.55	+0.55	0	0	0.00
	Independence–Alliance Party of Minnesota	1	5,654	0.18	+0.07	0	0	0.00
	Write-in	N/A	3,835	0.12	−0.09	0	0	0.00
Total			3,166,590	100.00	±0.00	67	±0	100.00
Invalid/blank votes			127,190	3.86	−1.38
Total			3,293,780	100.00	±0
Registered voters/Turnout[13]			4,118,462	79.98	+5.26
Source:Minnesota Secretary of State,[14]Star Tribune[15]

Districts where the margin of victory was under 10%:

1. District 14, 0.8%(gain)
2. District 34, 1.56%
3. District 26, 1.76%
4. District 25, 2.53%
5. District 27, 4.5%(gain)
6. District 38, 4.15%
7. District 37, 4.25%
8. District 54, 5.83%
9. District 39, 6.02%
10. District 56, 6.12%(gain)
11. District 33, 8%
12. District 53, 8.26%
13. District 58, 9.08%(gain)
14. District 4, 9.16%
15. District 3, 9.51%

On November 18, 2020, longtime DFL senatorsThomas M. Bakk andDavid Tomassoni announced they would be leaving the DFL party and form their own "Independent Caucus" in the state senate.^[18] Majority Leader Paul Gazelka welcomed the move and promised to give both senators chairmanships on "prominent committees". This changed the senate composition to 34 Republicans, 31 Democrats, and two independents.

• 2020 Minnesota House of Representatives election
• 2020 Minnesota elections
• 2018 Minnesota gubernatorial election
• List of Minnesota state legislatures

• Amber Phillips (October 2, 2020),"The state legislative battles to watch in 2020",Washingtonpost.com,Minnesota state Senate (aboutredistricting)

• Elections & Voting - Minnesota Secretary of State

• 2020 Minnesota elections
• 2020 state legislature elections in the United States
• Minnesota Senate elections

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from September 2023