State Rep. Cedrick Frazier took a narrow win over former federal prosecutor Anders Folk late Tuesday night in the race for Hennepin County Attorney, a progressive victory in a race that often felt like a referendum on the progressive policies of outgoing officeholder Mary Moriarty.
In a speech to his supporters, Frazier – who like Moriarty is a former public defender – said he was ready to hold President Donald Trump and federal agents accountable, both for their actions during Operation Metro Surge and for anything that may come in the next two years, when he said a wounded Trump could lash out.
“I will not bend, I will not break and I will not back down,” Frazier said.
His supporters, tucked into a side room of Pilllar Forum in Northeast Minneapolis, spent the early part of the evening cheering positive news broadcast onscreen for Democrats nationwide.
The cheers mellowed as sweeping Democratic victories became less of a dream and more of an expectation. But when Hennepin County’s votes were posted around 11 p.m. and showed Frazier in the lead, the room exploded and the DJ spun up Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” for the second time of the night.
Meanwhile, at Park Tavern in St. Louis Park, Folk told his supporters, including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, that while it had been a close race, it looked like he wasn’t going to win.
“We need to just keep moving Hennepin County forward,” Folk told reporters afterward. “Make this the best county we can. And I couldn’t be more excited to help with that.”
Hennepin County Commissioner Angela Conley, who represents parts of Minneapolis, was one of a number of local officials who cycled through Frazier’s watch party, along with State Sen. Omar Fateh and Minneapolis City Council President Elliott Payne.
As she door-knocked for DFL candidates, Conley said she’d heard many voters who were “fired up about his commitment to prosecuting ICE.” But she also talked about a voter she knew who’d flipped since the DFL convention in May from supporting Folk, to Frazier, back to Folk, and back to Frazier.
That final move, she said, was due to the endorsements that Frazier was able to secure from high-ranking members of the party as well as his experiences with law enforcement – not just as a legislator, but while growing up in Chicago, where Frazier said he faced gang violence and lost loved ones to gun violence.
Howard Dotson, a healthcare chaplain who ran for mayor of Minneapolis in 2025, said he was a supporter of Frazier’s plan to form a crime victim advisory council, saying that Moriarty had often left victims and their families feeling disrespected.
“He understands, as a lawyer, as a legislator, how to walk that delicate tightrope between law enforcement, prosecutors and the community,” Dotson said.
From the start, the race for Hennepin County Attorney had been about experience, though what kind of experience mattered and who had it was perhaps the biggest question.
Four decades working for the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office wasn’t enough to draw voters to Diane Krenz, who bowed out after the August primary. A leadership role in the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office, combined with an endorsement from Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt, couldn’t get Hao Nguyen past the primary, either. And a 2018 DFL endorsement for Minnesota Attorney General didn’t get Matt Pelikan that job nor this one.
What those three candidates did have in the primary was support from more than 41% of the electorate – votes that Frazier, who took 36% in the primary, and Folk, who took 23%, needed to find a way to win.
And Frazier did just that – barely – netting 50.55% of the vote once reports from all 395 precincts finally rolled in.
He told MinnPost that his campaign put in the work to talk to voters, “and we noticed that when our resume was compared to his resume, we came out on top.”
But politics played a role, too, even in what is nominally a non-partisan race. On the campaign trail, Frazier proudly touted his DFL endorsement. Folk, who worked for the U.S. Attorney’s office during the first term of President Donald Trump, took pains to note that he was a Democrat, too.
So it was perhaps less than helpful to Folk’s chances when some Republicans began openly endorsing him, giving Frazier’s campaign the chance to tie Folk to what was shown on election night to be a deeply unpopular party.
In his victory speech, Frazier said he is looking forward to the opportunities that could accompany the blue wave that swept the country on Tuesday.
“The DFL has had a hell of a night tonight, all up and down the ballot,” he said. “I’m excited about what we’re going to be able to do because we’re going to have friends in the Legislature, friends in the governor’s office, friends in D.C.”
MinnPost reporter Maddie Robinson contributed to this report.
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