There was a lot to worry about before Minnesota State Rep. Meg Luger-Nikolai romped to victory in the Jan. 27 special election to fill a vacant St. Paul state legislative seat. Her district, like neighboring Minneapolis, faced a brutal occupation by more than 3,000 federal officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol. Those officers had killed two residents of the Twin Cities and brutalized countless citizens and non-citizens alike.
The brutal crackdown on Minneapolis-St. Paul and comments from the Trump administration and its allies in right-wing media and Congress had raised serious concerns that ICE would be used to disrupt elections by policing or surrounding polling places.
“We were quite concerned about it, particularly for her race,” Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat, said about Luger-Nikolai.
Those fears have only grown as Trump’s allies leveled threats to use ICE around the polls.
“You’re damn right we’re going to have ICE surround the polls come November,” former Trump advisor Steve Bannon said on his podcast on Feb. 4.
