Franken has successfully used his national reputation to draw in donations from thousands of individuals, including a number of celebrities such as Barbra Streisand, Nora Ephron, Tom Hanks, Larry David and Jimmy Smits. After less than one year of operation, MVP raised nearly $1,000,000.
MVP’s stated goal is "to provide financial and organizational support to progressive candidates, activists, and causes," and is centered on the values Franken learned growing up in Minnesota.
In 2008, Franken, a Democrat, ran for the US Senate seat then held by RepublicanNorm Coleman. Coleman was elected to the seat in 2002 after Democrat Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash on October 25 of that year. Franken has said that Wellstone was one of his political heroes, and Franken has frequently criticized Coleman. After a long legal battle, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled on June 30, 2009 that in fact, Franken had won the election and stated that he deserved for the Governor and Secretary of State to issue a Certificate of Election.
MVP's short-term goal was to elect what it terms progressive Democrats, with a particular emphasis on retaking one or both of the houses of Congress in the 2006 mid-term election.
Paul David Wellstone was an American academic, author, and politician who represented Minnesota in the United States Senate from 1991 until he was killed in a plane crash near Eveleth, Minnesota, in 2002. A member of the Democratic Party (DFL), Wellstone was a leader of the populist and progressive wings of the party.
Dean Malcolm Barkley is an American attorney and politician who briefly served as a United States Senator from Minnesota from 2002 to 2003 as a member of the Independence Party of Minnesota. The founder and chair of the Minnesota Reform Party, he was the chairman of Jesse Ventura's successful upset bid for governor of Minnesota in 1998. Ventura subsequently appointed him director of the state's Office of Strategic and Long Range Planning. After Senator Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash just weeks before the 2002 election, Ventura appointed Barkley to fill Wellstone's Senate seat. His brief tenure ended when Republican Norm Coleman was elected and sworn in to fill the seat.
Norman Bertram Coleman Jr. is an American politician, attorney, and lobbyist. From 2003 to 2009, he served as a United States Senator for Minnesota. From 1994 to 2002, he was mayor of Saint Paul, Minnesota. First elected as a member of the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), Coleman became a Republican in 1996. Elected to the Senate in 2002, he was narrowly defeated in his 2008 reelection bid. As of 2023, he is the most recent Republican to have represented Minnesota in the U.S. Senate.
Alan Stuart Franken is an American politician, comedian, writer, actor, and media personality who served as a United States senator from Minnesota from 2009 to 2018. Franken first gained fame as a writer and performer on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live, where he worked for three stints. He first served as a writer for the show from 1975 to 1980, and returned from 1985 to 1995 as a writer and, briefly, a cast member. After decades as an entertainer, he became a prominent liberal political activist, hosting The Al Franken Show on Air America Radio.
The Republican Party of Minnesota is the state affiliate of the Republican Party in Minnesota and the oldest active political party in the state, being founded in 1855. The party controls four of Minnesota's eight congressional House seats. The last Republican governor of the state was Tim Pawlenty, who served from 2003 to 2011. The party's headquarter is located in Edina, Minnesota and the current chairman is David Hann.
Democracy for America(DFA) is a progressive political action committee headquartered in Burlington, Vermont. Founded by former Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean in 2004, DFA leads public awareness campaigns on a variety of public policy issues, trains activists, and provides funding directly to candidates for office. The organization has more than a million members in the United States and internationally.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) is the Democratic Hill committee for the United States Senate. It is the only organization solely dedicated to electing Democrats to the United States Senate. The DSCC's current Chair is Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, who succeeded Nevada‘s Catherine Cortez Masto after the 2020 Senate elections. DSCC's current executive director is Christie Roberts.
The 2002 United States Senate elections featured a series of fiercely contested elections that resulted in a victory for the Republican Party, which gained two seats and thus a narrow majority from the Democratic Party in the United States Senate. The Senate seats up for election, known as class 2 Senate seats, were last up for regular election in 1996. The election was held on November 5, 2002, almost fourteen months after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
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. The presidential election, which was won by Democrat Barack Obama, elections for all House of Representatives seats; elections for several gubernatorial elections; and many state and local elections occurred on the same date.
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.
re:power, formerly Wellstone Action, is a 501(c)(4) progressive advocacy organization founded by longtime political operative Jeff Blodgett. Based in Minnesota, it trains community organizers, student activists, campaign staff, progressive candidates and elected officials. The organization was originally named after Paul Wellstone, a U.S. Senator who died in a plane crash along with his wife, Sheila, and daughter, Marcia, on October 25, 2002. After Wellstone's death, his surviving children and former campaign manager founded the group to carry on Wellstone's populist approach to progressive politics.
The 2002 United States Senate election in Minnesota took place on November 5, 2002. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone was running for reelection to a third term, but died in a plane crash eleven days before the election. The Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) quickly chose former vice president and 1984 Presidential nominee Walter Mondale to replace Wellstone on the ballot. Mondale had previously held the seat from 1964 to 1976, resigning to assume the vice presidency. He narrowly lost to Republican Norm Coleman, the former mayor of Saint Paul. The day before the election, Governor Jesse Ventura appointed the 1996 Independence Party candidate, Dean Barkley, to serve the remainder of Wellstone's term.
The 2008 United States presidential election in Minnesota took place on November 4, 2008, and was part of the 2008 United States presidential election. Voters chose ten representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
Formed in the fall of 2006 by Becky Bond, Michael Kieschnick and James Rucker, the Secretary of State Project was an American non-profit, progressive or liberal 527 political action committee focused on electing reform-minded progressive Secretaries of State in battleground states, who typically oversee the election process. They hoped to prevent a repeat of Florida 2000, where the projects backers claimed that a Republican Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, took a partisan role in helping to determine the 2000 presidential election results. The Project was funded by George Soros and members of the Democracy Alliance including Gail Furman, John R. Hunting; Paul Rudd; Pat Stryker; Nicholas Hanauer; Rob Stein; Drummond Pike; Robert Bowditch; Scott Wallace; Susie Tompkins Buell; Albert Dwoskin; and Rob McKay.
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.
A general election was held in the U.S. state of Minnesota on November 4, 2014. All of Minnesota's executive officers were up for election as well as all the seats in the Minnesota House of Representatives, several state judicial seats, a United States Senate seat, all of Minnesota's eight seats in the United States House of Representatives, and several seats for local offices. A primary election was held on August 12, 2014, to nominate major political party candidates for partisan offices and candidates for nonpartisan offices.
Christine Elizabeth Smith is an American politician, retired Democratic political consultant, and former businesswoman serving as the junior United States senator from Minnesota since 2018. She is a member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), an affiliate of the Democratic Party.
The 2018 United States Senate special election in Minnesota took place on November 6, 2018, to elect a United States senator from Minnesota to replace incumbent Democratic Senator Al Franken until the regular expiration of the term on January 3, 2021. Facing multiple accusations of sexual misconduct, Franken announced on December 7, 2017, that he would resign effective January 2, 2018. Governor Mark Dayton appointed Franken's successor, Tina Smith, on December 13, 2017, and she ran in the special election. This election coincided with a regularly scheduled U.S. Senate election for the Class 1 Senate seat, U.S. House elections, a gubernatorial election, State House elections, and other elections.
The 2022 Alabama Senate elections took place on November 8, 2022, as part of the 2022 United States elections. Alabama voters elected state senators in all 35 of the state's Senate districts. State senators serve four-year terms in the Alabama Senate in Montgomery.
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