A mayoral election was held on November 2, 2021, to elect the mayor of the U.S. city of Minneapolis. Incumbent DFL mayor Jacob Frey won reelection to a second term, becoming the first Minneapolis mayor to win a second term since R. T. Rybak in 2005. Minneapolis mayoral elections use instant-runoff voting, also known as ranked-choice voting. All candidates appear on the same ballot and there is no primary election of candidates. Nor is there a subsequent runoff election - the ranked ballot allow votes to be transferred without asking voters to vote again. Minneapolis's twin city, Saint Paul, also held a mayoral election on the same day, using the same system. Under Minneapolis's use of IRV, Frey won because at the end he had a majority of the votes still in play.
The election came in the wake of a tumultuous period for Minneapolis, deeply affected by the murder of George Floyd and subsequent civil unrest. Frey's campaign faced challenges from a crowded field of candidates, including former state Representative Kate Knuth and community organizer Sheila Nezhad. Both Knuth and Nezhad aligned with more progressive factions within the DFL and advocated for policing reforms and formed an alliance urging their supporters to rank them as their top choices and exclude Frey from their preferences.
The election also featured discussions on issues such as affordable housing, climate change, and economic recovery post-COVID-19 lockdowns.
Frey announced his candidacy for mayor of Minneapolis on January 3, 2017, and won the November 7 election. He was sworn into office on January 2, 2018.
Frey is Minneapolis's second Jewish mayor, and its second-youngest after Al Hofstede, who was 34 when he was elected in 1973. Frey campaigned on a platform of increasing support for affordable housing and improving police-community relations.
Seven DFL members of the Minnesota State Legislature signed a letter urging Minneapolis residents not to reelect Frey and to instead elect a new mayor who would fight racial discrimination while improving public safety. The legislators who signed the letter were senators Scott Dibble and Omar Fateh and representatives Esther Agbaje, Jim Davnie, Aisha Gomez, Emma Greenman, and Hodan Hassan. The letter stops short of endorsing any specific candidate, but Agbaje, Davnie, Dibble, and Greenman separately endorsed Knuth. Gomez endorsed both Nezhad and Knuth.
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