Democrat Xp Lee won a Minnesota House special election Tuesday to fill the seat of a top Democratic leader who was assassinated in June, restoring a 67-67 tie and preserving a bipartisan power-sharing arrangement that has governed the chamber this year.
Lee, a former Brooklyn Park city council member, defeated Republican real estate agent Ruth Bittner in the heavily Democratic suburban Minneapolis district. In a victory statement, Lee said he would “work hard every day” to honor the legacy of Rep. Melissa Hortman and described a campaign focused on door knocking, phone calls and texts to neighbors.
The outcome preserves a power-sharing deal that Hortman, who was speaker until her death, brokered after the 2024 elections left House Democrats without a clear majority. Under that agreement, Republican Lisa Demuth became speaker while Hortman took the informal title of speaker emerita, and most legislative committees were evenly split with co-chairs from each party. The tie has required at least some bipartisan agreement for legislation to advance during the 2025 session.
Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin praised Lee’s stated priorities of expanding education access, affordable health care and good-paying jobs, and said in a statement that the win honors Hortman’s legacy. Martin, a former state Democratic chair, reiterated a call to condemn political violence following Hortman’s slaying and other recent attacks.
Hortman and her husband were shot and killed in their Brooklyn Park home on June 14 by a man impersonating a police officer. Another legislator and his wife were wounded in the attack. Vance Boelter, 57, has been charged in state and federal court with murder, attempted murder and other offenses in the case.
The special election came amid heightened attention to political violence after the recent assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Utah. Candidates in the House race said such incidents shaped voters’ concerns. Lee said last week he hoped to calm the “charged atmosphere” following the spate of shootings, while Bittner said the violence briefly caused her to hesitate about running but that retreating in fear would not solve the problem.
Rep. Zack Stephenson, Hortman’s successor as the top Democrat in the Minnesota House, said Lee’s victory restores the caucus to full strength ahead of a potential special session Gov. Tim Walz is seeking to address school security and gun violence. The call for a special session followed a shooting at a church last month that killed two students and injured 21 people.
Two more special elections are scheduled for Nov. 4 to fill Minnesota Senate seats. One will fill the seat of Democratic Sen. Nicole Mitchell, who resigned in July after being convicted in a burglary case. The other is to replace Republican Sen. Bruce Anderson, who died in July. The districts are considered safely Democratic and Republican, respectively, and control of the Senate is not expected to change. The Democratic candidate for Mitchell’s seat is state Rep. Amanda Hemmingsen-Jaeger; if she wins, the governor would need to call another special election to fill her House seat.
With the House evenly divided, lawmakers have continued to rely on negotiated agreements to move bills. The power-sharing arrangement has distributed committee leadership and required bipartisan cooperation to pass measures, a dynamic that will persist with Lee’s addition to the Democratic caucus. Lawmakers and party leaders said the restored balance makes it more likely they must reach cross-party compromises on contentious issues such as school safety, gun policy and budget priorities in any upcoming sessions.