The restructuring of the caucus and its chairs by a new leadership team is widely expected to produce a decidedly conservative shift on the part of Senate Republicans, who in recent years have built a more centrist track record than their increasingly conservative House colleagues.

In many cases, DFLers simply got caught in an undertow in districts that are fundamentally split in their political allegiances; in some, like rural Senate District 16, they handed back control of districts no one had expected them to win in the first place; in others, it appears, they failed to take steps to protect incumbents who faced discernible pockets of Republican opposition.

Republicans pummeled DFLers in the suburbs and greater Minnesota on Tuesday night to take control of both chambers of the Legislature for the first time since the modern partisan era started in the early 1970s.

Political action committees and legislative caucuses have already done mailings assailing the opposition. But now that the campaign has entered the final month, the rough-and-tumble race for the Legislature is kicking into high gear.

Many Capitol habitués with and without election certificates complain that the committee structure of recent years has created a more frenzied process that stretches legislators too thin and is too hard for lobbyists to follow.

Architect and lifelong Twin Cities resident Michael Bjornberg has been appreciating the classical splendor of the state Capitol in St. Paul his entire life. He ...

Minnesota political observers were surprised by the DFL’s walloping performance at the polls in Tuesday’s state House elections. “I knew there would be Democratic gains ...