The 2017 Minneapolis City Council election was held on November 7, 2017, to elect the members of the

Minneapolis City Council The Minneapolis City Council is the Legislature, legislative branch of the city of Minneapolis in Minnesota, United States. Comprising 13 members, the council holds the authority to create and modify laws, policies, and ordinances that govern the ...

. The political composition remained unchanged, with the

Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party The Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) is a political party in the U.S. state of Minnesota affiliated with the national Democratic Party. The party was formed by a merger between the Minnesota Democratic Party and the Minneso ...

(DFL) retaining 12 seats and the

Green Party of Minnesota The Green Party of Minnesota is a green political party in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It is affiliated with the Green Party of the United States. History The Minnesota Greens Confederation, founded 1990–1991, fostered the development of lo ...

one seat. Three DFL incumbents were defeated by intraparty opponents. The new City Council convened on January 8, 2018.

Retiring members

DFL

Jacob Frey Jacob Lawrence Frey ( ; born July 23, 1981) is an American politician and attorney who has served as the mayor of Minneapolis, Minnesota since 2018. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, he served on the Minneapolis City ...

, Ward 3 ( running for mayor) * Elizabeth Glidden, Ward 8

Electoral system

The 13 members of the City Council were elected from

single-member district A single-member district or constituency is an electoral district represented by a single officeholder. It contrasts with a multi-member district, which is represented by multiple officeholders. In some countries, such as Australia and India ...

s via

instant-runoff voting Instant-runoff voting (IRV; ranked-choice voting (RCV), preferential voting, alternative vote) is a single-winner ranked voting election system where Sequential loser method, one or more eliminations are used to simulate Runoff (election), ...

, commonly known as ranked choice voting, for four-year terms. Voters had the option of ranking up to three candidates in order of preference. Municipal elections in

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

are officially nonpartisan, although candidates were able to identify with a political party on the ballot.

Write-in candidate A write-in candidate is a candidate whose name does not appear on the ballot but seeks election by asking voters to cast a vote for the candidate by physically writing in the person's name on the ballot. Depending on electoral law it may be poss ...

s must have filed a request with the Minneapolis Elections & Voter Services Division for votes for them to be counted.

Candidates

Results

There were clear winners in several wards on election night.

Green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a com ...

Council Member Cam Gordon (Ward 2), who did not have an opponent, won re-election. Other council members who won on election night include DFLers Lisa Goodman (Ward 7),

Lisa Bender Elizabeth Peterson "Lisa" Bender is an American politician, city planner, and a former member of the Minneapolis City Council from the 10th Ward. In 2018, she was unanimously elected president of the Minneapolis City Council. Early life and edu ...

(Ward 10),

Andrew Johnson Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. The 16th vice president, he assumed the presidency following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a South ...

(Ward 12), and Linea Palmisano (Ward 13). Ward 8 DFL candidate Andrea Jenkins also won, replacing retiring DFL Council Member Elizabeth Glidden. Wards which did not have a clear winner underwent several rounds of vote transfers on November 8. Three incumbents lost re-election. DFL Council President Barb Johnson (Ward 4) lost to DFL candidate Phillipe Cunningham, DFL Council Member Blong Yang (Ward 5) to DFL candidate Jeremiah Ellison, and DFL Council Member

John Quincy Colonel John Quincy (July 21, 1689 – July 13, 1767) was an American soldier, politician and member of the Quincy political family. His granddaughter Abigail Adams named her son, the future president John Quincy Adams, after him. Two days ...

(Ward 11) to DFL candidate Jeremy Schroeder. DFL Council Members Kevin Reich (Ward 1),

Abdi Warsame Abdi Warsame (, ) (born 1978) is a Somali-American politician in Minnesota's Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party. After moving to London as an asylum-seeker, he immigrated to Minnesota in 2006. In November 2013, he was elected to the Minneapolis ...

(Ward 6), and Alondra Cano (Ward 9) retained their seats. In Ward 3, DFL candidate Steve Fletcher won over Socialist Alternative candidate Ginger Jentzen, who won the most first-choice votes but did not gain sufficient transfer votes. This was the first occurrence of the initial leader not ending up the winner of an election in Minneapolis since it switched to ranked-choice voting in 2009. A similar situation subsequently occurred in Ward 4 in which Johnson lost to Cunningham. Jenkins and Cunningham are the first transgender persons to be elected to the City Council.

Ward 1

Ward 2

Ward 3

Ward 4

Ward 5

Ward 6

Ward 7

Ward 8

Ward 9

Ward 10

Ward 11

Ward 12

Ward 13

President of the City Council election

After the election, which resulted in the defeat of Council President Barb Johnson, it was reported that DFL Council Members

, Linea Palmisano, and Council Member-elect Andrea Jenkins were seeking to replace her. When the new City Council convened on January 8, 2018, it unanimously elected Bender to be president. Following Bender's election, it was revealed that Jenkins and Palmisano were respectively seeking to be elected president and vice-president as a ticket. Bender said that while she had the votes to defeat them and install her supporters as chairs of choice committees, she wanted to avoid the Council splitting into factions that had sometimes characterized the previous City Council. As part of a deal to get her unanimous support and to present a united front, Bender agreed that Jenkins would be vice-president, who was also elected unanimously. A new committee structure was agreed to and council members that did not nominally support her would be given choice committee chairs. Bender said that all council members had to compromise. A final deal was not reached until January 7.