“It’s time for us today to be gracious,” said Republican Tom Emmer at a press conference at his Delano home Wednesday morning. “The next governor of Minnesota will be Mark Dayton.”
At his home in Delano this morning, Republican Tom Emmer is expected to concede the governor’s race. An unfavorable Minnesota Supreme Court opinion released Tuesday as well as a new poll showing a vast majority of voters want him to concede preceded the announcement.But more insurmountable for Emmer is the math: The State Canvassing Board will meet Wednesday morning to go over challenged ballots, but that number has shrunk to 181, far short of the approximately 9,000 Emmer would need to overcome Mark Dayton and win the governor’s mansion.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar is extremely popular with Minnesotans, according to a Public Policy Polling survey released on Tuesday. Klobuchar bests hypothetical Senate contenders such as Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Sen. Norm Coleman, Reps. Michele Bachmann and Erik Paulsen, as well as Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer. She also has a high favorability rating.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer withdrew 2,580 ballot challenges over the weekend after the State Canvassing Board gave the go-ahead for the campaigns to evaluate those frivolous ballots. In the end, the Emmer team narrowed the number of frivolous challenges that it will send to the board to just 24. Meanwhile, as the recount process draws to a close, CNN has become the first media outlet to call the race for DFLer Mark Dayton.
Updated budget numbers released by Minnesota officials Thursday show a surplus for the state through the end of the year and a $6 billion deficit for the upcoming two-year biennium. Gov. Tim Pawlenty called on legislators to pass a constitutional amendment that would change the way the state does accounting, while his likely successor, Mark Dayton, said that is was Pawlenty that helped the deficit get that big.
By Thursday evening, 93 percent of ballots had been counted in the Minnesota gubernatorial recount, but the State Canvassing Board will meet on Friday to deal with thousands of frivolous ballot challenges made by the team of Republican Tom Emmer, whose lawyer said the number could reach 8,700 by 2 pm today. Dayton’s team withdrew all its frivolous challenges and in a letter to the canvassing board chastised Emmer.
With DFLer Mark Dayton’s lead in the gubernatorial race hovering around 9,000 votes, Republican Tom Emmer’s campaign has increased its ballot challenges: Emmer’s 2,141 frivolous challenges, which dwarf Dayton’s 39, are now focused on Hennepin County, where election manager Rachel Smith is seeking to change counting procedures that have been slowed by the volume of Emmer’s challenges. The state GOP accused her of taking Dayton’s side in the recount.
The second day of the Minnesota gubernatorial recount focused on two counties, Hennepin and Ramsey, where the bulk of ballots remaining to be counted exist. Hennepin County officials told reporters Tuesday that the campaign of Republican Tom Emmer was engaged in numerous frivolous challenges to ballots. Meanwhile, party chair Tony Sutton says that the Republican Party may press for a court challenge once the recount has concluded.
By the end of the first day of the recount in Minnesota’s gubernatorial race, DFLer Mark Dayton picked up 20 votes while Republican Tom Emmer lost four after less than half of ballots were recounted Monday. The Emmer team launched an aggressive campaign to challenge ballots, although many challenges were rejected as “frivolous” by election officials. The recount was not without humor, though, as some voters made some interesting write-in choices. One voter, for instance, wrote in “Who farted?” for Ramsey County Sheriff — sure to be the recount’s version of the infamous 2008 write-in candidate “Lizard People.”
The race between gubernatorial candidates Democrat Mark Dayton and Republican Tom Emmer is officially headed to a recount after the State Canvassing Board met Tuesday to certify election results, as expected since election night. Emmer did not make headway in overcoming Dayton’s lead in the final pre-recount tally, but Tuesday’s board meeting indicated that legalese could drag out the process of certifying the winner of the election.
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