Ex-DFL chair says Minnesota should consider scrapping endorsing conventions
Candidate filing is over in Minnesota. A double-digit field of Republican hopefuls and a half-dozen DFLers have already secured primary slots for the open U.S. Senate seat; 14 are running for governor, with an even split of DFL and GOP candidates.
The sizeable number of primary challengers comes despite the work over the weekend by GOP and DFL activists to endorse candidates at their conventions. It’s led some to question whether Minnesota should scrap conventions altogether and go directly to primaries.
“I do think at this point in time that's a really serious question that the Legislature should debate,” Mike Erlandson, chair of the Minnesota DFL from 1999 to 2005, told MPR News.
“It’s OK to have caucuses kind of at the start of the political process and let people come out and gather with their neighbors and talk about issues and talk about candidates,” Erlandson said, but he questioned whether “a couple thousand people on each side of the political spectrum” should be choosing candidates for all Minnesotans.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/06/03/exdfl-chair-says-progressive-challengers-to-klobuchar-have-no-business-running-the-state
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