A Blaine City Council member has toppled a sitting state senator in one of Minnesota's most closely watched races. Democrat Chris Ford defeated Republican incumbent Sen. Michael Kreun in Senate District 32, a swath of Anoka County that includes Blaine, Columbus, Ham Lake and Lexington, winning the seat with 53% of the vote.
The outcome, called by Election Day and reported Wednesday, was among the storylines the Minnesota Senate had been watching all fall. According to MPR News, Ford's win in the Tuesday election helps the DFL protect its one-seat advantage in the chamber. Before polls closed, Democrats held a slim 34-33 majority over Republicans, according to MinnPost, with all 67 Senate seats on the ballot and 34 needed for control.
A Rematch Years in the Making for District 32
Kreun first won the District 32 seat in 2022, and this fall's contest against Ford was flagged months in advance as one to watch. The same MPR News reporting from late September identified Senate District 32 as one of the hottest legislative races heading into the election, alongside roughly a dozen other districts across the state. At the time, Kreun was the Republican incumbent and Ford was serving on the Blaine City Council, setting up a direct test of whether Anoka County's suburban district would stay red or swing blue.
Money poured into the race well before Election Day. More than $426,000 had been spent on the contest as of late September, per the same MPR News report, with the Senate DFL Caucus putting in almost $33,000 to try to unseat Kreun while the group Pro Jobs Majority spent more than $120,000 backing him.
Affordability Took Center Stage at the Candidate Forum
The two candidates offered starkly different pitches on cost-of-living issues at a forum in early October. Kreun argued that cutting government spending and lowering taxes were the right starting points for addressing affordability, according to Heartland Signal. Ford, meanwhile, focused his message on housing, health care and child care costs, the outlet reported.
A Flip From the 2022 Results
Ford's win marks a reversal from the district's last Senate race. In 2022, Kreun defeated DFLer Kate Luthner with 52.95% of the vote to her 46.96%, according to a report from Hometownsource. That contest saw Kreun pull in 19,684 votes against Luthner's 17,459, with 34 write-in votes recorded, the outlet noted. Four years later, the district's voters went the other direction, handing Ford the seat and denying Kreun a second term.
