We did it!
Minnesotans need leaders who will fight for our environment and climate, and stand up to polluters and special interests. By close margins, that’s what we won in the 2022 midterm elections. With your support, the Sierra Club played a key role in making this happen.
Learn more about our election work below. And join us at an upcoming Sierra Club Connect event to hear more about the election and how you can help leverage the results into dollars and bills for our climate, environment and communities:
- Happy Hour in Saint Paul on Thursday November 17, 5:00 - 6:30 PM
- Virtually via Zoom on Wednesday November 30, 7:00 - 8:30 PM
The Sierra Club plays a pivotal role in politics. That’s why the North Star Chapter’s Political Program ramped up our work this election, thanks to a first-of-its-kind collaboration with the national Sierra Club and leadership from our Political and Sierra Votes volunteer teams, staff expertise, generous donors and nonprofit partners. We showed up powerfully this year, and the results show that our work made a difference.
State House & Senate Majorities Make Environmental Victories Possible
The Sierra Club achieved our goal to maintain a pro-climate, pro-environment majority in the State House and “flip” the Senate. We targeted districts with strong environmental candidates, and where elections could be decided by just a few votes.
In the Senate, DFL candidates won a majority with the 34 seats needed to control the chamber. Four of our top targets were essential to this victory: Judy Seeberger, Heather Gustafson, Kelly Morrison, and Aric Putnam. As part of these wins, we helped defeat anti-environmental legislators Roger Chamberlain and Tama Theis.
We protected the pro-environment majority in the House. Five of our top targets prevailed: Lucy Rehm, Jeff Brand, Matt Norris, Zack Stephenson and Dan Wolgamott. As part of these wins, we helped oust four anti-environmental legislators: Susan Akland, Donald Raleigh, Greg Boe, and John Heinrich.
For the first time ever, the Sierra Club endorsed a candidate for Attorney General, Keith Ellison, who has been a strong champion for corporate accountability, including working to ensure that environmental protections are enforced and suing fossil fuel companies for lying about climate science.
Expanded Tactics Focused On Target Districts
Our process starts with the chapter’s extremely hard-working and savvy Political Committee, who conducted a thorough candidate vetting process, navigating an enormous workload in a year when redistricting meant many open seats and brand new candidates. With the support and review of our Executive Committee, we awarded 100 endorsements for state and local offices in 2022.
Building on this work, the chapter’s voter contact program focused on turning out environmental voters, in this midterm election to vote all the way down the ballot. We focused our tactics in targeted districts.
- We made over 150,000 calls to voters in key districts, including calls to get out the vote for Attorney General Keith Ellison. In a first-ever collaboration the national Sierra Club joined with the chapter’s Sierra Votes team to organize virtual phone banks with volunteers from across the U.S.
- We co-hosted door knocks with climate justice partners including MN350 Action and the 100% Campaign.
- We mailed almost 20,000 Minnesota voters the facts on our candidates, along with the anti-environment records of their opposition.
- We ran a sophisticated digital campaign to highlight candidates’ support for our shared values of freedom, health and democracy:
- Emails to chapter members and supporters in 14 priority districts reinforced this message and leveraged our network to talk with neighbors and turn out the vote.
- A significantly-expanded digital ads program featured 30 different videos ads (both positive, and contrasting the candidates) in 14 legislative districts. Strategically in some ads we linked extreme anti-environment and anti-choice candidates to gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen.
- Sierra Club volunteer leaders were inspired to work directly for candidates in their own districts, contributing to the election of environmental champions across the state.
In each of our tactics, we had a clear message for voters: only our candidates would protect our freedoms to:
- make our own reproductive choices
- drink clean water and breathe clean air
- have a livable climate
Here’s a sample of the mail we sent comparing Heather Gustafson to the anti-environment incumbent. We also sent positive mail pieces like this one for Judy Seeberger.
Building for the future
Sierra Club also targeted strong candidates in tough districts who lost in tough races (and we hope they will run again). This includes Kari Rehrauer, Clarice Grabau and Tami Calhoun.
In the August primary, nearly all of our endorsed candidates prevailed – both in Minnesota’s federal elections and at state level. Through the chapter's SierraVotes campaign, we influenced critical races, including a notable win in Duluth’s House 8B with environmental champion Alicia Kozlowski defeating an incumbent with deep ties to polluters.
And for the first time ever, the chapter endorsed candidates for Ramsey County and Hennepin County boards of commissioners, including Mai Chong Xiong who prevailed over her opponent with 50.19% of the vote.
Looking ahead
Overcoming the powerful forces of anti-climate interests is challenging. The results show we can defeat extreme Republicans and corporate polluters who deny climate change, pollute our water, and threaten our freedoms.
Now it is our responsibility to ensure that climate and environmental justice remain central as lawmaking begins. Together we have created a historic opportunity for Minnesota to lead on climate. The time for real action is now.
Join us at an upcoming Sierra Club Connect event to debrief the elections and learn ways you can get involved.