Candidate Profiles: County-Level Races

The candidates on your ballot for this race will depend on your County and County Commissioner. To find your County and County Commissioner, put your address in here.

See the responses to our candidate questionnaire for these races here.

*Denotes incumbent

Hennepin County Attorney

Martha Holton Dimick

Nonpartisan

Policy Stances:

• Guns
  • Create a Gun Violence Prevention Task Force that tracks, targets, and prevents gun violence.
    Advocate for dedicated funding and resources put to evidence-based violence interruption programs
    Work with local law enforcement and city leadership to provide them with adequate resources and support to prevent gun violence
• Public Safety
  • Focusing on and dedicating more resources to prosecuting violent and repeat offenders
    We need to fund law enforcement and the justice system.
    Lobby state and local governments to increase resources available for law enforcement and prosecution
    Hiring and retaining prosecutors from communities affected by violent crime who have a grounded understanding of the situation
• Reproductive Justice
  • Protecting a woman’s right to choose

Mary Moriarty

Nonpartisan 

Policy Stances:

• Public Safety
  • Under Mary’s leadership, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office’s will bring a research and data-driven, trauma-informed approach to public safety. The office will prioritize prosecution of violent crime, and strive to bring real accountability and opportunities for rehabilitation for people who do engage in violence.
    Mary will support law enforcement in their efforts to investigate violent crimes and identify those responsible.
    The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office will contribute to the process of building trust by creating a police accountability unit within the county attorney’s office. This unit will work with police leadership on training, development of officers, and holding officers accountable when they break trust and commit crimes.
    When police officers commit crimes, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office will charge those officers and hold them accountable.
• Reproductive Justice
  • If elected, Mary will take an oath to uphold both the U.S. Constitution and the Minnesota State constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court, in deciding Roe v. Wade, determined that every individual had a right to privacy which is “broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.”
    Mary will do everything in her power to uphold the principles Roe stood for and to protect abortion access in Hennepin County.

Hennepin County Sheriff

Dawanna Witt

Nonpartisan 

Policy Stances:

• Public Safety
  • I will focus our agency’s efforts on targeting violent crime throughout Hennepin County. I will also leverage the resources of the Sheriff’s Office to support local police departments with community specific issues, so that all residents feel safe in their communities.
  • I will implement new programs within the Sheriff’s Office that would support people in the basic skills needed to become productive members of society. My programs will focus on substance abuse support, mental health support, and obtaining employment.

Joseph Banks

Nonpartisan 

Policy Stances:

• Public Safety
  • I will work with other police agencies and the community to address and stop the uptick in violent crimes that has been plaguing our neighborhoods.
  • I will increase Sheriff Department transparency and accountability and find alternatives to the use of force in investigations involving law enforcement agencies in Hennepin County.

Hennepin County Commission District 3

Ashley Boldin
Nonpartisan

Policy Stances:

• No selected policy areas were addressed

Marion Greene
Nonpartisan

Policy Stances:

• Environment
  • With my guidance and advocacy, the county adopted its first ever Climate Action Plan on May 4, 2021.
    We have created a new Climate and Resiliency Department, with staff dedicated to leading this work, and championing this thinking across the county.
    We are committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to “net zero” emissions by 2050, both in the county’s operations and geographically. This positions Hennepin County as a leader on addressing climate change in the upper Midwest.
• Guns
  • Magnified county investments in mental health, maternal health, gun violence prevention, and anti-hate initiatives
• LGBTQ+ Rights
  • County engagement work emphasizes the voices of populations historically marginalized by the system – (racial and cultural, youth, LGTBQIA+)
• Public Safety
  • All work considered at Hennepin County includes a racial equity impact analysis

Ramsey County Board of Commissioners District 3

David A. Singleton

Nonpartisan 

Policy Stances:

• No selected policy areas were addressed

Trista MatasCastillo

Nonpartisan 

Policy Stances:

• Environment
  • I will partner with communities in Ramsey County to support a collective commitment to be a Zero Waste County. I support legislative efforts to return money to counties to fund recycling and composting efforts. As commissioner I will continue to find ways to protect our environment and protect against environmental impacts on our ground, air and water.
• Public Safety
  • I will work closely with the Ramsey County Sheriff to support continued implementation of character based recruitment and hiring to ensure our deputies reflect the diversity and values of our community. I will support holistic approaches to improving public safety like the county’s Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiatives program, which ensures we take new approaches to working with youth when they encounter the criminal justice system.

Ramsey County Board of Commissioners District 4

Darryl Spence

Nonpartisan 

Policy Stances:

• No selected policy areas were addressed

Rena Moran

Nonpartisan 

Policy Stances:

• Public Safety
  • Immediate efforts to respond to violent crime need to be established to prevent further harm to our communities. Programming needs to be developed in partnership with communities to ensure we are working together to develop strategies that work and do not further criminalize already harmed communities and populations.
  • Ramsey County needs to drive an accountability model which supports justice internally and externally. Internally, our system needs to improve its transparency around performance, so that we do not allow individual system actors to continue to harm the community they serve. Externally, we need to develop and commit to accountability structures which do not perpetuate more harm for victims/survivors and defendants, and rather restore communities so that they are even stronger.

Ramsey County Board of Commissioners District 5

Bill Hosko
Nonpartisan

Policy Stances:

• No selected policy areas were addressed

Rafael Ortega*

Nonpartisan 

Policy Stances:

• No selected policy areas were addressed

Ramsey County Board of Commissioners District 6

Mai Chong Xiong

Nonpartisan

Policy Stances:

• Environment
  • Streamline recycling and composting and make this convenient and accessible to working families and Black, Brown, Indigenous, People of Color
    Stand against burning and advance toward solar and zero waste
    Prioritize building and redesigning our county roads for bikers, mass transit, & pedestrians
    Work to reduce the county’s carbon emissions to net neutral by 2040
    Implement a Green New Deal for Ramsey County that leads on the climate justice, creates high-quality jobs, grows local sustainable food systems, improves and increases the affordable housing stock, and reduces economic inequality
• Public Safety
  • Work in collaboration with the city to push for demilitarization of the police force
    Oppose all policies that criminalize poverty and homelessness
• Voting Rights
  • Support an automatic voter registration policy
    Advocate for expanding ranked choice voting

Ying Vang-Pao

Nonpartisan 

Policy Stances:

• Environment
  • I believe Ramsey County can do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and I am committed to maintaining Ramsey County’s amazing 8000 acres of parks, trails, and recreation areas.
• Public Safety
  • More resources for law enforcement.
    Broad community engagement and input; training and initiatives to increase trust; and hiring and retaining more diverse law enforcement personnel; as well as appropriate allocation of more resources when needed.