St. Paul mayoral race heats up as Kaohly Vang Her announces run
Why it matters: Her's campaign launch wakes up what had been a sleepy mayoral race.
Carter has boasted runaway advantages in cash, name recognition and key endorsements — but Her is likely to draw notable support from organized labor.
The big picture: A vigorous mayor's race will stir more debate about the challenges St. Paul faces, including rising property taxes, lagging housing development and a struggling downtown.
State of play: Two other candidates have already stepped forward to challenge Carter, who has announced his intention to seek a third term but has not officially launched a campaign yet.
Biochemist Yan Chen filed to run for the seat on Tuesday. She previously ran for the Ward 1 City Council seat.
Small business owner Mike Hilborn has launched a campaign one year after unsuccessfully challenging state Rep. María Isa Pérez-Vega as a Republican in a heavily Democratic district.
Zoom in: Her, 52, was born in Laos to parents who arrived in the U.S. as refugees when she was 4. She became a naturalized citizen while in junior high school.
The intrigue: Her is running against her former boss; Carter hired her as policy director after first taking office in 2018.
Later that year, Her won a seat representing neighborhoods along St. Paul's Summit Avenue in the Minnesota House.
In this year's legislative session, Her served as the top DFLer on the House Commerce Finance and Policy committee.
Flashback: Her stirred a firestorm on right-wing media earlier this year when she attempted to solicit sympathy for undocumented immigrants by declaring during a floor speech that she and her parents were "illegal" when they came to the U.S.
Her later clarified that neither she nor her parents were ever undocumented, but that her father — who worked in the U.S. consulate during the Vietnam War era — had "technically" broken the law by telling a white lie on their refugee application. Her's parents are now citizens.
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