Women face off in #Metoo Senate race
Minnesota to decide Franken replacement
ST. PAUL, Minn. — In Minnesota’s surprise race to fill Al Franken’s former Senate seat, the two women running tell their own versions of a familiar story.
Democrat Tina Smith, who filled the former “Saturday Night Live” cast member’s seat in January after he resigned, recalls being asked if she could handle a grueling campaign. Her answer: “I should not be underestimated.”
Her Republican opponent, state Sen. Karin Housley, talks at campaign stops of her disbelief when her financial adviser told her to “stick to changing those diapers and putting a good meal on the table” when she asked about her portfolio. She studied up and wrote a book about investment instead.
Against the backdrop of the #Metoo movement that has swept high-profile men in politics, media and entertainment out of power, a record number of women are running for governor and Congress. No race is more emblematic of the changing landscape than Minnesota’s Senate contest, where the leading candidates are women seeking election to the seat of a man who resigned because of sexual misconduct allegations.
“I think we are maybe at a tipping point for women to say: ‘Yes I can do this job,’” Smith said in a recent interview. “For women to grasp that moment and run with it is a really exciting thing.”
Two other states, Washington and New York, have general election Senate matchups where both candidates are women. Arizona and Michigan may join them.
From the start of Franken’s downfall, the focus has been on women — first on whom Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton would name to Franken’s seat and now on the women running to finish his term. Housley and Smith are well-known inside Minnesota’s state Capitol, but they are little-known statewide.
In an election triggered by women coming forward with sexual misconduct allegations, most prominent men in Minnesota politics stayed on the sidelines, including a former governor and several congressmen.
“I think the pattern is pretty clear that because of the nature of the seat … I think a lot of men decided, ‘No, let’s run for governor or let’s wait it out. This is not the year,’” said Celinda Lake, a national Democratic political strategist. “Women are coming in as insiders, women are coming in as outsiders. But they’re all communicating change.”