Election officials were expected to start the recount for the District 54A seat Thursday at the Scott County Government Center. It's one of two recounts in the state after election results were tight enough to trigger it under state law.
As it stands right now, the 134-seat Minnesota House of Representatives appears evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. But there are two seats that remain undecided because the race was too close. The DFL does control the Minnesota Senate.
DFL State Representative Brad Tabke from Shakopee won reelection in District 54A by 13 votes over Republican Aaron Paul.
In 14B, DFL State Representative Dan Wolgamott of St. Cloud beat Republican Sue Ek by just 28 votes. A recount is scheduled in that race for Monday.
Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon says the when it's that close, a recount is automatic and, by the way, it's open to anyone who wants to watch.
"Everyone can show up," Simon explains. "You don't have to live in that place. You don't have to be a big shot or a VIP."
Simon says election officials from both parties will examine the paper ballots and if there are issues, they can be contested.
"There were, you know, marks all over the ballot or that wasn't the voter's intent or whatever. There's a process for that too," Simon said. "The recount isn't the end of it. There's something called a contest, which is basically a lawsuit. So after the recount, there can be a lawsuit where a judge gets involved and there's testimony."
The outcomes of both recounts could tip the scale of control of the Minnesota House, which is now evenly split.
Governor Walz and House Leaders begin to plan 2025 Session
Meanwhile, Governor Tim Walz is planning to meet with legislative leaders in the House and Senate this week talking about the upcoming session, and the state's new divided government. It comes after Democrats had full control of all three bodies of government.
WCCO's political analyst Blois Olson says he expects a gracious meeting but they'll have questions to answer.
"How do we want to approach this session? How are we going to move forward? I think, you know, Governor Walz has said he looks forward to compromise," says Olson on the WCCO Morning News. "People have started to say this is gonna be really kind of a status quo session. You have the budget that's there. You don't have a very big surplus. But I think relationships and the tone of the meeting is going to be very different than it has been."
Olson notes that they didn't have bipartisan legislative meetings very often in the last couple of years during the DFL trifecta.
"The idea that we're going to start with that well before session hopefully bodes well," Olson said. "But I don't want to underestimate this budget's going to be a challenge for them to agree on, on all sides. And the governor's got to put out a budget, and that's going to be the first signal of how far apart they're going be between Republicans and Democrats."
House leadership is also a challenge they'll need to face assuming the even split stands after the two election recounts. There have already been some backroom negotiations between DFL House Speaker Melissa Hortman (Brooklyn Park) and GOP Leader Lisa Demuth (Cold Spring). Olson says they logistics will take time.
"Republicans have to hire staff to bring them on par because they now get an equal number of staff to Democrats," Olson explains. "You're also going to have two committee administrators for each committee. You're going to have two chairs, and they're going to have to go through that. What I've heard is that they're in general agreement about kind of the structure, but they're still not in agreement on kind of the operations. How they have to pick a speaker. That's going to be the first moment that we understand just how long it's going take for them to find an agreement."
The session begins Tuesday, January 14, 2025 at 12:00 p.m. This would be the first session in Minnesota since 1979 where the House is split evenly.