What Minneapolis’ Local Elections Spell for the Future of Police Reform
Minnesota State Patrol officers stand guard in Minneapolis, Minnesota a few days after George Floyd’s murder on May 25, 2020. Photo by Lorie Shaull.
Amid national outrage over George Floyd’s murder and broader rising concerns about crime and gun violence, Minneapolis voters rejected the City Question 2 ballot measure on November 2nd to replace the city police department with a “Department of Public Safety.” After the final votes came in, political pundits across the country began debating the extent to which the results were reflective of the national movement to “defund” the traditional police system. Some opponents of the proposal framed the vote as a clear rejection of the movement while supporters of the proposal characterized the loss as representative solely of the city’s internal political dynamics. The situation begs the question: which analysis is the most accurate? Does the defeat of Question 2 signal the decline of the “Defund the Police” movement, or is it just a minor setback for the people of Minneapolis in their quest to reform the policing system? The answer could point less towards one side and more towards the nation’s tendency to wildly gauge the results of off-year elections.
Going into the city council and mayoral elections, which also included the vote on Question 2, Minneapolis residents were split over the fate of their police department. A PBS poll conducted three weeks before Election Day showed that most voters were opposed to reducing the size of the police force, but about half were in favor of replacing the department. Moreover, three fourths of Black voters opposed shrinking the police force. Black voters also demonstrated less interest in abolishing the department than white voters.
Pitched amidst this backdrop of varied voter distributions, City Question 2 was an ambitious proposal that would have replaced the police department with a “Department of Public Safety” (DPS). It would have authorized the mayor of Minneapolis to nominate a DPS commissioner, contingent upon city council approval, and it would have amended the City Charter to remove language concerning minimum police funding requirements and the mayor’s control of the department.
City Question 2 bitterly divided a city already embroiled in a national media firestorm. The “Yes 4 Minneapolis” campaign framed the proposal as an expansion of public safety and a departure from the policies that failed the Black and brown citizens of Minneapolis. The “All of Minneapolis” campaign opposed the proposal, calling it a leap in the dark. The ballot measure also divided the state Democratic Party. Progressive U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar and Attorney General Keith Ellison supported it with U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith and Governor Tim Walz in opposition.
Closer to home, City Question 2 also split members of the City Council. Most of them expressed enthusiasm for large scale police reforms following George Floyd’s murder, but had since moderated their calls in response to alarming crime statistics. One politician caught in the middle of the debate was Mayor Jacob Frey. With more than a dozen candidates challenging his post, he risked his candidacy by publicly opposing Question 2 but ultimately won reelection with 49% of the vote.
The Minneapolis municipal elections drew a lot more attention than usual, mainly due to the debate surrounding Question 2 that dominated most candidates’ platforms. More people cast early ballots in November than any other Minneapolis election in the past 45 years. Early voting was up 143% compared to the previous municipal election in 2017. Five hours into election day, 30% of registered voters had cast their vote. The two dominant campaigns, “Yes 4 Minneapolis” and “All of Minneapolis,” sparred in a campaigning war to get voters on their side. With the murder of George Floyd at the hands of white police officers fresh on everyone’s minds, the “Yes” campaign gained ground in the summer of 2020; but soon, prominent left-of-center organizations, like the ACLU, began distancing themselves from the “defund” faction of the reform coalition in response to rising violent crime statistics. The “No” campaign criticized the vague language of Question 2, finding issues with the ambiguous functions of the Department of Public Safety and the future employment of active police officers. Another point of contention between the two groups involved popular Chief of Police Medaria Arradondo. The first Black police chief of the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD), Arradondo acted swiftly to fire the four officers involved in George Floyd’s death and cancelled future negotiations with the local police union. Opponents of the measure warned that replacing the police department would mean losing Arradondo as police chief. Supporters actively refuted that claim.
Eventually, after a contentious election season, 56% of voters rejected the measure. In line with the conclusions of the PBS poll, Wards 4 and 5, where a large majority of Minneapolis’ Black citizens live, voted no. The evidence over whether the vote reflects just the city’s policy preferences, or is indicative of the direction the country is headed, is mixed.
On the one hand, what happened in Minneapolis was part of a larger trend in the 2021 elections. Many voters in liberal cities voted against scaling back their local police forces, and a large portion of Democratic candidates running for municipal positions espoused moderate opinions on police reform. Bruce Harrell supported increasing police recruitment and won the Seattle mayoral race with 62% of the vote. Former police captain Eric Adams also opposed the “Defund the Police” movement. He swept the predominantly Black and brown neighborhoods in the Democratic primary and cruised to victory in the New York mayoral race. After staging an aggressive write-in campaign against Democratic Socialist India Walton, Byron Brown won reelection in Buffalo, New York, with 59% of the vote. He framed his victory as a win against socialism and defunding the police. However, not all liberal cities voted against police reform. For instance, Cleveland and Austin voted to significantly increase police accountability and curb police hiring, respectively.
Understanding the criminal activity statistical backdrop against which these local elections occurred is key to making sense of their outcomes. In September, the FBI released their 2020 crime report, which detailed the biggest one-year increase in homicides since national record-keeping began in 1960—about 4,900 more murders since 2019. However, major crimes dropped overall by about 5%, and the higher murder rate persisted through 2021 at a slower pace. These numbers correlate with the growing share of Americans who want greater police spending in their area. According to a study published by the Pew Research Center, 21% of Americans across the country want to see “a lot” more spending on the police in their communities, up from 11% in June 2020. Eleven percent fewer Americans want to see funding for their local police decreased by “a little” or “a lot.” When split into demographic and partisan cohorts, the results of the Pew Research poll largely align with surveys taken of Minneapolis voters before the election. For example, 16% more Black adults and 15% more Democrats now prefer increased police spending. Republicans, too, support greater spending by about 16%. Currently, public opinion favors injecting police departments with a financial booster.
Clearly, the highest profile police reform vote in the country failed. Without a doubt, it was a setback for activists in Minneapolis and across the country. However, the vote should not be considered simply as a barometer of national sentiment but also as a function of the political dynamism of the city. The failure of Question 2 might seem out of place, but other outcomes say otherwise. Moderates were able to oust progressive incumbents in three wards, picking up a net gain of one seat on the 13-member City Council and moving the chamber closer to the center on the political spectrum. Progressives, however, managed to push through some victories of their own, picking up two city council seats and passing a city-wide rent control measure. Was 2021 a total failure or tiny loss for Minneapolis progressives? Probably neither. But it does show that even in the nucleus of the “Defund the Police” movement, police reform will inevitably face major hurdles.
So where does the police reform movement in Minneapolis go from here? Well, any viable path ought to begin with examining the loss of Question 2. The text of the measure, while promising, left out many important details that could have gained support for the proposed “Department of Public Safety.” It failed to define the scope of the “comprehensive public health approach” that would have governed the department. It did not address the department’s functions, instead leaving them to the determination of the mayor and city council. Furthermore, it left in the dark the future roles of Chief of Police Arradondo and the hundreds of police officers in the MPD. The measure does use definitive language to express the removal of the chief from the City Charter, but also used vague language to describe the changed status of police officers as “licensed peace officers.” Obscure language can hamper voter accessibility, and when voters are uncertain about the purpose of a measure, they might feel more comfortable preserving the status quo, even if they believe that fundamental change is necessary. In the case of policing, large scale reform is the ideal for many voters, but it can only be accomplished through initiatives made up of practical, concrete steps—not abstract, hazy promises.
Another action police reformists must take is addressing the culture war over “Defund the Police.” As more reform efforts spring up across the country, it is highly unlikely that Republicans, and other opponents of radical police reform, will not tag the proposed changes to the controversial slogan. Even some Democrats are now admitting that the party’s growing association with the label has been a big mistake. If the movement’s original leaders sought to present a nuanced argument on police funding, it does not seem to be working. The Democratic Party might further lose in electoral contests if they fail to recontextualize the “Defund the Police” movement as a redistribution of resources from the police to other socioeconomic services better equipped to serve society, rather than the total abolition of safety measures. As it struggles to maintain its coalition, the party is at a pivotal moment in their police reform campaign.
The nationalization of political rhetorics is a double-edged sword. It can amplify a local political stratagem into a national rallying cry, but it can also create a resounding clarion call against even the smallest changes. As political leaders contend with the future of police reform in their cities, they must be able to weather the reality of a country that increasingly seeks outright approval or total rejection.
Max Hermosillo (CC ’25) is a staff writer at CPR and a Political Science major from San Jose, California. His interests include Marvel, Hispanic literature, and constitutional law.