Democrats in Minnesota rode a blue wave to victory Tuesday, winning both houses of the state Legislature and the governor’s race to take full control of state government for the first time in eight years.
Single-party control of the state was confirmed Wednesday morning when Republican Senate Majority Leader Jeremy Miller conceded that his party had lost its majority to Senate Democrats.
GOP House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt had earlier conceded the state House to Democrats while Democratic Gov. Tim Walz won re-election on Tuesday night.
"Tim Walz is the governor for four more years," GOP challenger Scott Jensen told supporters in a concession speech. "Republicans, quite frankly, we didn’t have a red wave. It was a blue wave. And we need to stop, we need to recalibrate, we need to ask ourselves: ‘OK, what can we learn from this? What can we do better? How do we go forward?’"
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Waltz won with a little more than 52% of the vote against Jensen’s 44.6%.
While several legislative races were yet to be called as of Wednesday morning, Democrats appeared to exceed the 68 seats they need to preserve their majority in the House, while Democrats appeared to have the 34 seats needed to control the Senate.
The only other time that Minnesota saw single-party control in the past 30 years was when Democrats held full power in 2013-14, and the last time any Minnesota Republican won statewide office was in 2006, when Gov. Tim Pawlenty was reelected.
Democrats also appeared poised to keep Minnesota's three other constitutional offices. Secretary of State Steve Simon defeated Republican election skeptic Kim Crockett, winning more votes than any other Democratic statewide candidate including Walz.
Attorney General Keith Ellison and State Auditor Julie Blaha held narrow leads over GOP challengers Jim Schultz and Ryan Wilson in races that had yet to be called Wednesday morning.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
