Star Tribune
Inside the 2024 election at the Minnesota Star Tribune
The Minnesota Star Tribune newsroom in downtown Minneapolis will be buzzing with organized chaos on election night when national, state and local vote counts start tumbling in. But the emphasis there is on organized, because preparations for this year’s national election coverage have been underway for months.
Prepping for 2024 elections coverage at the Minnesota Star Tribune
Explaining and interpreting national, state and local politics to Minnesota readers has been among this newspaper’s paramount missions from its earliest days. That historic role is newly vital in recent years, as disinformation and misinformation around voting and election outcomes has spread far and wide.
On Tuesday, reporters, photographers and videographers with the Star Tribune will spread out across Minnesota to interview voters at polling locations. And when polls close, writers, editors and visual journalists will work to deliver election results in key federal, state and local races to our digital and print audiences. In all, about 125 Star Tribune journalists will be part of election coverage.
Planning started in January. A group from around the company met for a brainstorming session on the the types of stories would drive engagement and satisfy the curiosity of the Star Tribune audience, said Greg Mees, senior assistant managing editor.
“You plan for everything,” Mees said. “You make plans for contingencies, of us not knowing winners, of us knowing winners on both sides. And we map that out in advance so that we’re ready for anything.”
Federal, statewide and legislative race results data comes from the Associated Press, which has a ground operation of staff stationed in county and precinct offices around the country charged with accurately recording election result data. The Star Tribune combines those numbers with results from the Minnesota Secretary of State, said C.J. Sinner, director of graphics and data visuals.
“We have this big backend feed and code that combines those two in a way that is understandable for people, so that they can search any race that’s happening in the state on our site,” Sinner said. The Star Tribune Live Election Results Dashboard checks for data every 60 seconds, eliminating the need to refresh. Users will be able to type in their addresses to see election results from their own ballot, or search for any local race in the state.
No other local news organization gives readers all of these race results in one place, Sinner said.
The new center aims to connect the East Lake Street community with services related to housing, community safety and more.
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Mayor Jacob Frey says he plans to run for re-election next year.
“I’m preparing to do so (run) but not making any formal announcements yet,” Frey said in a text Monday.
Frey was elected mayor in 2017, defeating incumbent Betsy Hodges, after representing Ward 3 on the Minneapolis City Council from 2014 to 2018. His first term was rocked by the COVID-19 pandemic, George Floyd’s murder by police and subsequent unrest that destroyed city blocks and rippled across the globe.
While a majority of City Council members called for defunding the police, Frey resisted and instead promised reform, angering a crowd of protesters that marched to the door of his townhouse days after Floyd’s murder. Minneapolis residents sided with him when they rejected a 2021 ballot measure to replace the police department with a new Department of Public Safety, and re-elected Frey.
Police reforms continue to dominate his tenure, as state and federal officials are forcing the police department into court-sanctioned monitoring due to discriminatory policing. Meanwhile, the police department continues to hemorrhage officers: The department has about 578 sworn officers, down from nearly 900 in 2019, a 36% decrease.
The Rev. DeWayne Davis, lead minister of Plymouth Congregational Church, announced plans to run for mayor on Oct. 17. Before his ordination in 2012, he worked as a congressional staffer. He co-chaired Frey’s Minneapolis Community Safety Work Group that recommended public safety reforms.
Minneapolis Council Member Emily Koski said Monday she’s “strongly considering” running for mayor. She campaigned with Frey in 2021, when she was elected to represent Ward 11 in south Minneapolis, and was considered one of his top allies on the council. But she broke ranks with Frey on his $15 million plan to replenish MPD ranks; sided with the council’s progressive majority in overriding Frey’s veto of changes to rideshare regulations; and voted against Frey’s proposal to build a new Third Precinct police station downtown.
If Koski runs, she’d be following in her father’s footsteps: Albert Hofstede was a council member before being elected Minneapolis mayor in the 1970s.
A $5 billion facility to manufacture jet fuel for airplanes is coming to Moorhead.
DG Fuels, a Washington D.C.-based energy company, announced they’re putting a sustainable aviation fuel [SAF] plant in Clay County, bringing 650 jobs to northwestern Minnesota’s border with North Dakota.
The facility, which expects to start production in 2030, will convert agriculture and timber waste into jet fuel, according to a statement from Greater MSP, a Twin Cities-based regional development organization.
“We not only want to lead the world in de-carbonizing air travel” at Minnesota-St. Paul International Airport, said Peter Frosch, CEO of Greater MSP, in an interview, on Monday. “But we want to produce that SAF in Minnesota.”
The selection of Moorhead, Frosch continued, was evidence of the concerted push from the Minnesota SAF Hub — which includes, government, universities, nonprofits and companies, including Bank of America and Delta Air Lines — to ramp up production of SAF in Minnesota.
The project is also a win for Moorhead.
“With the largest shovel-ready industrial site in the state of Minnesota, we are excited and prepared to compete on the national stage for this economic development opportunity,” said Moorhead Mayor Shelly Carlson, in a statement.
While SAF can be produced from biomass streams, including corn stover, industry experts look to perennial crops, as well, such as camelina and other oilseeds as possible sources for feedstocks.
