Tay Stevenson '10, a Minnesota state Senate nominee, will face an additional opponent in his campaign after incumbent state Sen. Paul Koering who lost the Republican primary in August announced his decision to re-enter the race as a write-in candidate last month.
Koering, the two-term state senator from Minnesota's 12th District, said his constituents begged him to get back into the running.
"Wherever I went, people were telling me they were going to write my name in," Koering told the St. Cloud Times.
Koering lost handily in the primary to former state Rep. Paul Gazelka after details of his personal life were revealed to the public, according to the Times. Openly gay, Koering recently admitted to rumors that he had been on a date with a pornographic actor in June 2010.
After losing the primary, Koering initially endorsed Stevenson citing Gazelka's affiliation with the Tea Party. Now, Koering says his two terms of experience in the Senate make him the best choice.
Despite Koering's write-in efforts, Stevenson's campaign strategy will not change, he said in an interview with The Dartmouth. He said he will continue an "issue-based" campaign, focused mainly on a plan to improve the local economy by creating jobs in both the public and private sectors. He also aims to help reduce the size of public school classes and improve the health care system in Minnesota.
"Our campaign strategy has remained the same from day one," Stevenson said. "We show people what we can offer for the area, a new perspective, new leadership and fresh energy."
Koering plans on running as an independent, having disaffiliated himself from the Republican party after his loss in the primary. If elected, Koering said he would most likely caucus with the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, the party that nominated Stevenson and that has held a majority in the state Senate for the last 30 years.
"If this turns out successful, I'm going to determine where my caucusing could best help the people that I represent here," Koering told the Times.
Records in the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library show a write-in candidate has never been elected to the Minnesota Legislature, the Times reported. The closest case was in 1974 where write-in contender Bob Lessard lost by more than 1,000 votes to Irv Anderson in the District 3 state Senate election.
Gazelka has said Koering doesn't stand a chance and the incumbent has a different motive: to split the Republican vote and help Stevenson win.
"It's a sour grapes campaign against the voters," Gazelka told the Times.
Though rarely successful, write-ins can influence the outcome of an election, as shown by the Minnesota District 16 senate race in 2008. During that election, write-in Republican candidate Mark Olson received over 1,400 votes, helping DFL candidate Lisa Fobbe to an 85-vote win over the Republican nominee Allison Krueger.
However, Stevenson, a government and philosophy major who graduated in June, does not agree with Gazelka's assertion.
"If Koering wanted to help me win, he would have just endorsed me," Stevenson said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "A good indication that he doesn't want to help me win is that he's running against me."
Only two state senators have been elected in the United States as write-in candidates in the last 30 years, both under unusual circumstances.
Carl Hawkinson won a 1986 Illinois Republican primary as a write-in after the incumbent died in a fire a few days before. Charlotte Burks won a 1998 Tennessee State Senate election by write-in after her husband, the Democratic incumbent, was assassinated by his opponent.
