The election is behind us and the planning has taken over for the Democrats who will be in charge of state government. Frustration with President Donald Trump fueled high voter turnout and a DFL sweep of the top Minnesota offices and legislative majorities. U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar won the governor’s race and will be the first woman in that job. Friday at noon, MPR News politics editor Brian Bakst talks with Klobuchar about how she’ll enact a list of priorities as she campaigned on.

At the Capitol, there are signs of change incoming. Governor-elect Amy Klobuchar’s transition team is getting set up on the top floor. The new members of the Minnesota House went through their orientation yesterday. And Senate caucuses met to pick their new leaders. Well, for Senate Democrats it’s not new. Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy will continue in her role leading Democrats and Sen. Bobby Joe Champion will continue presiding over the chamber as Senate president. Sens. John Marty and Nick Frentz will remain in their positions as well, as finance chair and Frentz as deputy majority leader, a new title after being assistant majority leader. Sen. Scott Dibble will take over as the chair of the tax committee, a role Sen. Ann Rest held before she retired. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans picked Sen. Jordan Rasmusson of Fergus Falls to lead their caucus after they lost a handful of seats and two other races are likely heading for recounts. Sens. Julia Coleman, Karin Housley and John Jasinski will stay in assistant leader positions. Sen. Jeremy Munson and two others who will be named later will also have assistant leader roles. The House DFL is keeping it's leadership steady. Rep. Zack Stephenson will be speaker designate, and Rep. Jamie Long will be majority leader. Rep. Samantha Sencer-Mura was elected majority whip.

Retiring Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz says he'll leave it up to Gov.-elect Amy Klobuchar to decide who should fill her U.S. Senate seat. Klobuchar was elected Tuesday and will take over as governor in January. She'll have to resign from the Senate before then. Walz told MPR News that he and Klobuchar will work together on timing but he will defer to her on who to pick. Both are Democrats. "I think as an outgoing governor, this is not a go-out-the-door-with-my-pick alone. I would guess that she and I would probably end up pretty close on the same type of person who should do that job. But this is Governor-elect Klobuchar's decision to make. How we operationally do that, we'll work together.” The appointee will be Minnesota's interim senator ahead of a special election next November. The temporary senator could run in that election. Klobuchar's Senate term was supposed to run through 2030.

The parlor game of who should get that appointment is in full swing since Tuesday night’s results came in. A lot of you have been leaving comments on our social media about who you would like to see sent to Washington on Minnesota’s behalf. Our digital team curated the names they’re seeing the most and is putting that question to the rest of our audience. Pick someone on the list or add other names.

Steve Simon avoided saying whether he was in the mix of possible replacements for Amy Klobuchar’s seat once she takes office as governor. Simon told MPR’s Nina Moini, “[Klobuchar] has been our senator and an outstanding one in my mind for the last 20 years. So whoever is appointed will have massive shoes to fill. I just trust that she's going to do what's best for Minnesota,” he said. “She's going to make up her own mind. It's a big decision, and I'll just leave it there. I have faith in her, and I think Minnesotans do as well.” The governor has the power to appoint a vacancy in the Senate when the seat is vacated. Klobuchar sidestepped questions about when she might resign from her seat. 

Minnesota elected its first woman as governor Tuesday. Amy Klobuchar achieved what other women who ran ahead of her fell short of. Kyra Miles reports that in 1998, at the urging of former Gov. Al Quie, Joanne Benson launched her campaign for governor . “I think so highly of him, and I thought if he had confidence in me, maybe I could do it,” Benson, a Republican, told MPR News. Benson was, at that time, serving as lieutenant governor for Gov. Arne Carlson. She’d been a member of the Minnesota Senate before that. She said she’s happy to see the first woman in the governor’s office, though she had hoped Republican Lisa Demuth would have won. “It was about time that Minnesota joined the ranks of the other states that have had women and men governors, so it’ll be an interesting time for all of us,” Benson, 83, said. When she launched her campaign, she was the front runner for the nomination until St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman joined the race. Coleman won the party’s endorsement at the state convention, and Benson ended her campaign. 

Along a wind-whipped on-ramp to Highway 610, Colin and Sophie Hortman huddled with Gov. Tim Walz and former colleagues of their mom’s before unveiling a sign designating the stretch “Hortman Memorial Highway.” Lawmakers agreed to rename the highway for former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in honor of her work pushing to pass legislation and funding to complete the north metro highway. The couple was killed last year in their Brooklyn Park home. Hortmans’ peers and her son and daughter said the project was a central theme through her 20-year career in the Legislature. And they said the Hortmans would appreciate being memorialized this way. “Melissa and Mark weren't necessarily spotlight people, and so I think they would very much appreciate that we're out here today and not tucked away in an office, and we're on their highway remembering them forever,” Colin Hortman said. State Sen. John Hoffman, who survived an assassination attempt the night the Hortmans were killed, was also in attendance and posed for photos with Colin and Sophie at the base of the sign. Additional tributes to the Hortmans, including additional trees on the Capitol grounds and a garden outside the State Office Building, are also in the works. Dana has more here.

U.S. Rep. Brad Finstad is requesting a recount in the 1st Congressional District, against DFLer Jake Johnson. Molly Castle-Work reports that Johnson , who unofficial results show is up by 323 votes, gave a victory speech Wednesday in Rochester. “This is not my victory. This is by us. This is for us,” the 43-year-old former high school teacher said. In a statement Thursday, Finstad’s campaign said they will “work to ensure that the full process established under state and federal law is followed, so that every vote is counted in an accurate and transparent manner.” Minnesota law provides a recount when the margin is within one quarter of one percent. Johnson’s lead is one tenth of a percent.

Several Minnesota Republicans say Trump cost them in the state Legislature. While the GOP slate of candidates campaigned heavily on anti-fraud issues — something they felt would galvanize voters to keep the DFL in check — they say the frustration voters felt with President Donald Trump was too much to overcome. The Star Tribune’s Walker Orenstein and Ryan Faircloth spoke with several Republicans who lost races and shared frustration over Trump’s effect on downballot races. “To me it’s very clear this is a rejection of one man and his behaviors and policies,” said Sen. Jim Abeler, a long-time member of the House and Senate and moderate Republican, who was ousted by a Democrat. One-time GOP governor candidate Chris Madel, who dropped out of the race over his opposition to Operation Metro Surge, says he could feel that anger at the administration’s governance at that moment. “You can’t treat humans as subhuman and get away with it in this country,” he told the Star Tribune. “You can’t do it. And I think that’s beautiful.” Others said candidates also need to take a look at themselves and the party as a whole as two years from now, Trump will be out of office and the party will have to assess what it is without him.

Across the river, there is also a new Democratic trifecta, something our cheese-loving neighbors haven’t had in 16 years. Voters in Wisconsin pushed their chips in for Democrats in the state Senate, Assembly and governor’s office. Democrats have a 53 to 46 edge in the Assembly and an 18 to 13 edge in the Senate. “Wisconsin is no longer a purple state. It hasn’t been,” Former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson told Wisconsin Public Radio . “We haven’t won a statewide race for a long time. Wisconsin is a blue state. It was before I got elected governor, and it’s gone back to that after the Republicans had control for several years.” Thompson says President Donald Trump’s victory in the state in 2024 was “an aberration,” pointing to David Crowley’s 10 percentage point win in the governor’s race. Two of the state’s congressional seats flipped from Republican to Democrat.