Minnesota, Known for Bipartisan Civility, Reels After Attack on Lawmakers

The assassination of an elected official is rare and shocking anywhere on American ground.

Nowhere is it more jarring than in Minnesota, a state known for a singular political culture with high value placed on bipartisanship and a tradition of civic involvement that transcends ideology.

“What happened today is simply incomprehensible and unimaginable, certainly in the context of Minnesota,” Norm Coleman, a former senator from Minnesota and former mayor of St. Paul, said in an interview on Saturday. He ticked off a list of Republican and Democratic politicians who had reached across the aisle — Hubert Humphrey, Tim Pawlenty and Amy Klobuchar. “It’s a history of people who tried to find common ground.”

Authorities in Minnesota were still trying to capture the 57-year-old man who has been identified as the suspect in the shootings that took place early Saturday in the quiet suburbs of the Twin Cities. But they said that it was “politically motivated” act of violence, and that the suspect had papers in his car that indicated he may have been planning to target one of the “No Kings” protests taking place in the state or cities across the country on Saturday.

Minnesota, one of only three states with a legislature where control is split between Democrats and Republicans, consistently has higher voter turnout than any other state, with 76 percent of voting-age citizens casting ballots in the 2024 presidential election.