St. Cloud is a city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the largest population center in the state's central region. Its population is 68,462 according to the 2019 US census estimates, making it Minnesota's tenth largest city. St. Cloud is the county seat of Stearns County and was named after the city of Saint-Cloud, France, which was named after the 6th-century French monk Clodoald.
Ozora Pierson Stearns was an American politician and attorney. A member of the Republican Party, he served as a US Senator from the state of Minnesota. Prior to his election to the Senate, he served as mayor of Rochester, Minnesota and county attorney of Olmsted County. He was a Colonel in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
Betty Castor is an American educator and former politician and elected officeholder. Castor was elected to the Florida Senate and as Florida Education Commissioner, and she subsequently served as the President of the University of South Florida, and President of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.
The 2008 United States Senate elections were held on November 4, 2008, with 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate being contested. Thirty-three seats were up for regular elections; the winners were eligible to serve six-year terms from January 3, 2009 to January 3, 2015, as members of Class 2. There were also two special elections, the winners of those seats would finish the terms that ended January 3, 2013.
Minnesota is known for a politically active citizenry, with populism being a longstanding force among the state's political parties. Minnesota has consistently high voter turnout; in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, 77.8% of eligible Minnesotans voted – the highest percentage of any U.S. state or territory – versus the national average of 61.7%. This was due in part to its same day voter registration laws; previously unregistered voters can register on election day, at their polls, with evidence of residency.
The 2008 United States Senate election in Minnesota took place on November 4, 2008. After a legal battle lasting over eight months, the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) candidate, Al Franken, defeated Republican incumbent Norm Coleman in one of the closest elections in the history of the Senate, with Coleman's Senate predecessor Dean Barkley taking third place. Franken took his oath of office on July 7, 2009, more than half a year after the end of Coleman's term on January 3, 2009.
Sheila E. Harsdorf is a Republican politician in Wisconsin, most recently serving as Wisconsin Secretary of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection. Harsdorf previously served in the Wisconsin Senate and the Wisconsin State Assembly.
Cheri Lynn Beasley is an American attorney and jurist who served as the chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court from 2019 to 2020. Beasley had previously served on the North Carolina Court of Appeals and as a district court judge in Cumberland County, North Carolina.
Tarryl Lynn Clark is a Minnesota politician and a former member of the Minnesota Senate. A Democrat, she represented District 15, including portions of Benton, Sherburne, and Stearns counties, from 2006 to 2011. She was a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party nominee for United States Congress in 2010, unsuccessfully challenging incumbent Republican Michele Bachmann.
Michelle Louise Helene Fischbach is an American attorney and politician who is the U.S. representative from Minnesota's 7th congressional district. The district, Minnesota's largest and most rural district, includes most of the western area of the state, including Moorhead, Fergus Falls, Bemidji, Detroit Lakes, Morris, Thief River Falls, Willmar, Marshall, and Alexandria. A Republican, Fischbach previously served as the 49th lieutenant governor of Minnesota and as the first female president of the Minnesota senate.
Elizabeth Hickok Robbins Stone was an American pioneer woman who was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 1988. Born in Connecticut and raised in New York, Elizabeth Hickok was married and widowed twice and had 8 children from her first marriage to Dr. Ezekiel Robbins. Most of her adulthood was spent as a pioneer, building homes and businesses with her husbands in Missouri, Illinois, Minnesota and Colorado. Both of her husbands participated in developing statehoods: Ezekiel Robbins in Illinois and Lewis Stone in Minnesota.
Wilhelmina Marie Wright is a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota. She is the only jurist in Minnesota's history to be State District Court Judge, Appellate Court Judge and state Supreme Court justice. She was formerly an Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, a judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, and a Judge of the Minnesota District Court, Second Judicial District.
The 2014 United States Senate election in Minnesota was held on November 4, 2014, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of Minnesota, concurrently with the election of the Governor of Minnesota, as well as other elections to the United States Senate in other states and elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections.
Four justices of the seven-member North Carolina Supreme Court and four judges of the 15-member North Carolina Court of Appeals were elected by North Carolina voters on November 4, 2014, concurrently with other state elections. Terms for seats on each court are eight years.
Mary Kelly Kunesh is an American politician and member of the Minnesota State Senate. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), she represents District 41, which includes parts of the counties of Ramsey, Hennepin, and Anoka, and the cities of Fridley, Spring Lake Park, Columbia Heights, Hilltop, New Brighton, and St. Anthony.
The 2016 Wisconsin Fall General Election was held in the U.S. state of Wisconsin on November 8, 2016. One of Wisconsin's U.S. Senate seats and all eight seats in the United States House of Representatives are up for election, as well as half of the Wisconsin Senate seats and all of the Wisconsin Assembly seats. The 2016 Fall Partisan Primary was held on August 9, 2016.
Sarah Burger Stearns was a social reformer and a leader in the woman's suffrage movement in the U.S. state of Minnesota. She co-founded the Minnesota Woman Suffrage Association and served as its first president.
Erica Hinkle MacDonald is an American lawyer who served as the United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota from 2018 to 2021. She served as a judge of the District Court for the First Judicial District of the State of Minnesota from 2010 to 2018; as an Assistant United States Attorney from 2000 to 2009; a litigation associate in 2000; and a federal judicial law clerk from 1997 to 1999.
A special election was held in the U.S. state of Minnesota on November 6, 2018, to elect a new senator for District 13 in the Minnesota Senate, caused by the resignation of Republican Senator Michelle Fischbach effective on May 25, 2018. The special election determined which political party would control the Senate given that Fischbach's resignation left it equally divided between the Republicans and the DFL. Jeff Howe won the special election, preserving a Republican one-seat majority. The special election coincided with the 2018 general election.
