Election wins for two state representatives Tuesday put Minnesota on track to beat its record of most special elections in one year.

Reps. Kaohly Her, who was elected St. Paul mayor, and Amanda Hemmingsen-Jaeger, who was elected to the Senate, leave two open House seats in St. Paul and Woodbury, respectively, that will drive Minnesota to eight special elections in 2025 alone — topping the state’s record of six in 1994.

The six special elections held this year were triggered by the resignation of Sen. Nicole Mitchell, the death of Sen. Bruce Anderson, the assassination of Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman, the resignation of former Sen. Justin Eichorn, the residency dispute involving Rep.-elect Curtis Johnson and the death of former Sen. Kari Dziedzic.

While the two open seats could potentially swing the chamber’s tie, in 2024, Her won the House seat in District 64A with 83% of the vote, and Hemmingsen-Jaeger won the House seat in District 47A with 61%.

House DFL Leader Rep. Zack Stephenson, DFL-Coon Rapids, said he expects to retain both of the seats, preserving the 67-67 House tie, after Gov. Tim Walz sets the special elections.

“The House DFL Caucus is full of talent, and I am pleased the voters of St. Paul, Maplewood and Woodbury recognized that,” Stephenson said. “The two vacant seats are in strong DFL areas where Kamala Harris defeated Donald Trump by 70 and 25 points, respectively. We take nothing for granted and will run vigorous campaigns, but at the end of the day we will retain both seats.”

With the House tied, legislation must have bipartisan support to pass. If Republicans can flip just one of the DFL seats in St. Paul and Woodbury, House Republicans would have a majority and would therefore be able to pass more of their priorities.

It would also mean more leverage in negotiations and the ability to deny a quorum, like House Democrats did at the beginning of the 2025 session. Still, any bills passed by House Republicans would need to make it past a DFL-controlled Senate and Walz’s desk to become law.

While lawmakers passed a state budget and a bonding bill in the 2025 session, several pieces of big legislation are already being pitched for the 2026 session, including gun control and efforts to bar transgender women and girls from female sports.

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By DAMIAN J. TROISE, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are slipping in morning trading Thursday as investors pore over another batch of earnings reports from U.S. companies.

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The S&P 500 slipped 0.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 185 points, or 0.4%, as of 10:25 a.m. Eastern time. The Nasdaq composite fell 0.7%.

Corporate earnings and forecasts have been the big focus all week. The latest round of results and statements from executives could help shed some light on the condition and path ahead for the economy amid a lack of broader information on inflation, employment and retail sales because of the ongoing government shutdown.

DoorDash sank 14% for one of the sharpest drops on Wall Street. The food delivery app warned investors that it will be spending significantly more on product development next year.

Software company Datadog jumped 22.4% after its latest earnings beat analysts’ forecasts. Rockwell Automation rose 5.7% after turning in results that easily beat analysts’ forecasts.

It has been a wobbly week for major indexes, which set record highs last week. The broader stock market has had a record-setting year, but that has raised worries that stocks could be overvalued. Those concerns are even more focused on big technology companies that have been leading the market higher amid the focus on artificial intelligence advancements.

The latest round of earnings is being closely monitored to gauge whether the stock market’s big values are justified. The results are also helping to fill in gaps in information because of the U.S. government shutdown, which is now the longest on record.

Another week of unemployment data was missing Thursday because of the shutdown. It has already resulted in a lack of monthly employment data for September and will likely result in missing employment data for October, along with a lack of data on consumer prices for October.

The absence of updates on the job market and inflation has left the Federal Reserve in the dark at the same time that employment was weakening and inflation heating up. That leaves the central bank in a tough spot. It has to decide whether cutting its benchmark interest rate to counter the economic impact from a weaker job market is worth the risk of worsening inflation.

Lower interest rates can help stimulate the economy by making loans less expensive, but they can also fuel inflation.

The Fed has already cut its benchmark interest rate twice this year. It has signaled more caution as it tries to navigate the risks to the economy. Wall Street is forecasting a 69% chance that the central bank cuts interest rates in December, according to CME FedWatch. That’s down from more than 90% just prior to the most recent interest rate cut.

European markets edged lower after a divided Bank of England kept its main interest rate unchanged. Asian markets closed higher.

Treasury yields moved lower in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.09% from 4.16% late Wednesday. The yield on the two-year Treasury fell to 3.57% from 3.63% late Wednesday.

When the final horn sounded last weekend and the Mahtomedi High girls soccer team’s second consecutive Class 2A state championship was secured, Zephyrs’ goalkeeper Harlow Berger dropped to her knees and touched her forehead to the U.S. Bank Stadium turf.

There was gratitude and celebration in the action, but it was mostly to seek relief. The 6-foot-3 backstop’s right shoulder had popped out of the joint and then back in when she crashed to the ground to block a Blake cross with seven minutes remaining.

Mahtomedi midfielder Charlotte Monette, center top, jumps into the arms of goalkeeper Harlow Berger as they celebrate with their teammates after defeating Mankato East 2-1 during the Class 2A Semifinal of the Girls State Soccer Tournament at US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (Craig Lassig / Special to the Pioneer Press)

“I was super happy, but mostly I was in a lot of pain and I needed to go to the floor,” said Berger, whose sparkling, 12-save performance powered Mahtomedi to its 12th state crown. “It was constant pain, but I knew it was worth it.”

Berger, who is committed to play at the University of St. Thomas next season, has been undergoing tests, including an X-ray and an MRI to determine the extent of the injury and how best to treat it. It’s safe to say, however, that the 17-year old has the fortitude to overcome whatever the diagnosis might be.

Berger’s father, Steve, was one of 60 people killed during a 2017 mass shooting at a Las Vegas music festival. Her mother, Joanna, a recreational marathon runner, died in 2019, five years after suffering a massive stroke that severely curtailed her movement.

“It’s a sad story, but also a story of triumph,” said Mahtomedi coach Dave Wald, a longtime math teacher at the school who taught Joanna Berger during the 1990s. “It’s amazing how much certain kids have to go through and you don’t always realize the heavy baggage they carry with them.”

Joanna Krusell married Steve Berger, a former basketball standout at Wauwatosa West High in suburban Milwaukee, who also played at St. Olaf College. The couple divorced in 2017 and Steve, a 6-foot-6 financial advisor known for his booming voice and enveloping hugs, was celebrating his 44th birthday in Las Vegas when he was killed on Oct. 1 of that year.

“He was very handsome and he had a presence about him,” said Bob Krusell, Joanna’s father. “Harlow was a daddy’s girl and if he’d go to her game, you knew who he was.”

Father and daughter loved to fish together and of his children, Bob Krusell and his wife, Pat, believe the tragedy was hardest on Harlow, who was 9 at the time. She and her siblings lived with their maternal grandparents after their father’s passing, but the oldest, Hannah, is now 23 and out on her own, and Harrison, 20, is a University of Minnesota student.

Harlow Berger now spends considerable time at the house of a friend and club soccer teammate, Nina Meyer, who attends Hill-Murray and whose parents have treated her as one of their own. She’s dealt with academic and mental-health issues but is outgoing, mature and articulate. Patricia Krusell said her granddaughter has gained a stronger sense of self and her emotions through counseling at her school and her religious faith.

Pat Krusell and Harlow worked on a college application essay in which the senior wrote about how “trauma creates change you don’t choose, but healing is about creating change you do choose.” It went on to discuss the idea of gaining relief through intentional living and not merely drifting through life.

Harlow Berger said her mother tended to put “everybody before herself, and I’ve taken that from her.” Combined with a tendency to internalize her emotions, the teenager hasn’t always been on solid emotional ground. October is always a difficult month, and her coaches have learned to gently check in on a more frequent basis and realize why her focus may wander at that time of year.

“Sometimes it hits home pretty hard,” said Berger, noting she went through multiple therapists before finding one with whom she deeply connected. “It can be simple things, like hearing someone say ‘my mom and dad’ and realizing I don’t have that.

“My therapist makes me really think about things and pushes me to dig into my thoughts. I don’t say ‘I don’t know’, anymore, I dig into why I feel the way I feel.”

Berger acknowledges she suffers from anxiety and depression and plans to major in psychology at St. Thomas in the hopes of becoming a therapist herself. She also is poised to join a Tommies women’s soccer team that won’t bring back a starting goalkeeper after failing to win a conference game this fall.

“I’ve gotten confidence from sharing my story and hope it can impact people positively,” said Berger, who wears jersey No. 43 as a way to connect herself with her father, whose sports number was 42. “A lot of people at my school see me as an athlete who gets everything she wants, but nobody knows the true story. I hope this makes other people want to tell theirs.”

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College football’s coaching carousel is spinning faster and faster as the regular season enters its final month, and the breeze coming off it can be felt in Minnesota.

There are currently 13 job openings at FBS schools. Nine are from within the Power Four conferences, including some of the most marquee brands in the country — LSU, Penn State, Florida and Auburn.

National speculation is this cycle suggests there might be more than 40 head coach vacancies when the dust settles, meaning the breeze coming off the carousel now could rise to gale-force winds come December.

Even in less turbulent years, Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck is name-dropped for openings, primarily because of how he has outperformed his predecessors at Minnesota and done so relative to his current peers while having fewer NIL resources at the U.

Already this fall, Fleck has been named on coaching hot-board lists in The Athletic, Sports Illustrated, On3 and Football Scoop.

Gophers athletics director Mark Coyle, having lived through it before, knows Fleck will keep getting mentioned. He told the Pioneer Press that in September, when there were only three major openings.

“You hear all these names,” Coyle said last weekend on KFAN’s pregame show before the Gophers’ 23-20 overtime win over Michigan State. “Who’s going to Penn State? Who’s going to LSU? I’m not saying P.J. is going to one of those places, but his name is going to pop up in places. It’s going to create a trickle-down effect.”

Fleck’s resume won’t do enough to stir fan bases in, say, Happy Valley, Pa., or Baton Rouge, La., but it might hold appeal in spots such as Fayetteville, Ark., or in Blacksburg, Va. Compared to what they’ve had, Arkansas and Virginia Tech might like Fleck’s consistency, culture and ability to spike with a dream, championship-chasing season that ends in a big bowl game.

Across the previous 75 years of Gophers football, Fleck’s winning percentage (.603) is higher than any of his 12 predecessors.

While Fleck has produced only one outstanding season, 11-2 in 2019, he has two other nine-win campaigns, and this season’s team is on the verge of its sixth winning record over his nine total seasons. Two of those losing years were in his first campaign (2017) and the pandemic-shortened season (2020).

While things have been far from smooth this year, the Gophers’ 4-2 conference record has been good enough to sit sixth in the 18-team mega conference heading into the second week of November. They were tied for seventh last year.

This fall, Minnesota’s best win is a dominant 24-6 victory over then-25th ranked Nebraska (6-3, 3-3 Big Ten), but the Gophers have been run off the field by Ohio State, which debuted at No. 1 for the College Football Playoff rankings Tuesday, and 20th-ranked Iowa. The U also took a disappointing loss at Cal (5-4, 2-3 in ACC).

Fleck’s resume also includes a 7-17 record against teams ranked in the Associated Press Top 25. While he is 4-4 against rival Wisconsin, he is 1-8 versus Iowa.

This season, the Gophers have required comebacks for ugly wins against some of the worst teams in the conference: Rutgers, Purdue and Michigan State, which are a combined 1-17 in Big Ten play.

The Gophers were pegged by oddsmakers at 6 1/2 wins in the offseason. Currently sitting at 6-3 overall, they are bowl eligible going into this week’s bye. They will be huge underdogs at No. 9 Oregon next week, but can reach eight wins with victories over Northwestern (5-3, 3-2) at Wrigley Field on Nov. 22 and at home versus Wisconsin (2-6, 0-5) on Nov. 29.

On a near annual basis, Coyle and the U have awarded Fleck with contract extensions. The latest came in July, which keeps his annual salary at $6 million through Dec. 2030, while increasing his annual retention bonuses.

That total sum ($7 million) remains outside the top half of the highest-paid coaches in the Big Ten, and Coyle regularly comments on how he feels the need to be a good financial steward on behalf of the university.

“We feel really fortunate to have P.J. here, and our goal is to keep him here at Minnesota as long as we can,” Coyle said on KFAN on Nov. 1.

(Note: The athletic department is, by and large, financially self-sufficient from the rest of the university system.)

Fleck’s new contract revised down the buyout for him to leave — from $7 million to $5.5 million this year. In the current era of exorbitant coaching buyouts, that sum is paltry, especially compared to the huge sums paid by Penn State and LSU to have James Franklin and Brian Kelly leave their programs.

Some sitting coaches named in the rumor mill for other vacancies have already received highly lucrative contract extensions this season: Curt Cignetti at Indiana, Matt Rhule at Nebraska and Rhett Lashlee at Southern Methodist.

So, another contract extension for Fleck seems like a possible route.

“We will continue to have conversations,” Coyle said on the radio. “Our goal is to make sure that he and (wife) Heather feel valued here.”

Fleck has said he “loves” it in Minnesota. He continues to preach about “cultural sustainability” and that he is built to have more success with less resources.

But if this coaching cycle is as volatile as it’s setting up to be, dominoes could fall across the nation, and Fleck could be poached by another program. The value in sitting coaches is considered higher as schools are shelling out more than $13 million in revenue sharing dollars to pay players.

“I don’t see it slowing down,” Coyle said. “I think with the first year of rev share, the pressure on these coaches, the pressures on these programs. I mean, the Governor of Louisiana (Jeff Landry) was making comments about the whole situation (at LSU), which is just bonkers to me. I always say, ‘You can’t make it up. It’s college athletics.’ ”

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