Was a Minnesota House special election in the east metro a referendum on the Trump administration?

“Occasionally I would get those comments, but my response was true to my message, which is we need to focus on those issues in the state of Minnesota, which is affordability, crime and public education,” he said.

Gottfried’s addition to the chamber will bring Democrats back to 67 members, restoring a tie in the chamber and shifting the two parties into a negotiated agreement where they must share power.

The high-profile nature of the race in Minnesota likely boosted turnout, but Democrats say they’ve also seen higher turnout from their party in special elections across the country this year.

Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, an arm of the national party that works on statehouse races, said Democratic candidates in special legislative elections are outperforming in races by an average of 9 percentage points.

On the same night as Minnesota’s special election, a Democratic candidate in Iowa came within 5 percentage points of winning a special legislative election for a seat that Trump had carried by 27 points last fall.

“As chaos reigns in Washington, Democrats have a real opportunity to fight back in our state legislatures where there are winnable and chamber-deciding special elections nearly every single week,” said Williams, whose group gave $100,000 to the House DFL caucus ahead of the Roseville special election.