At a candidate screening Thursday evening, Noor won the endorsement with 62 percent of the vote on the second ballot from the liberal advocacy group.

Senate District 59, which encompasses the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota and northeast Minneapolis, is home to one of the most concentrated DFL constituencies in Minnesota.

In the race for dollars, Kari Dziedzic and Peter Wagenius bested the pack of DFLers vying for the nomination in the Senate District 59 race to succeed former Sen. Larry Pogemiller. The amount of money raised in a month of campaigning exceeds the amounts raised by many legislative campaigns in an entire election year.

The Minnesota Association of Professional Employees (MAPE) and the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers have endorsed Mohamud Noor in the upcoming special election in Senate District 59.

Higgins, a DFLer who has represented Senate District 58 in downtown and North Minneapolis since 1996, will retire after her term expires after next year's general election. She is the latest in a string of retirements of veteran Minneapolis DFL senators.

A bi-partisan group of 31 legislators sent a letter to Gov. Mark Dayton on Friday urging him to raise funds for a Minnesota Vikings stadium by allowing full-fledged casinos at the state's two horse racing tracks. It was signed by 27 Republicans and 4 DFlers.

Two days after filing to run for the Senate seat being vacated by Larry Pogemiller, Cordelia Pierson has dropped out of the contest. Instead Pierson announced that she is backing Kari Dziedzic, one of six DFLers remaining in the contest. Dziedzic is currently a policy aid to Hennepin County Commissioner Mark Stenglein.

On the final day of filing for the Minneapolis Senate seat being vacated by Larry Pogemiller, five more challengers climbed into the race. The field stands at eight candidates, including seven DFLers who will square off in a December 6 primary.

No one seemed to see Larry Pogemiller’s departure coming. Not even him. Gov. Mark Dayton announced late last week that the Minneapolis senator of nearly 30 years would move to the Office of Higher Education to replace former Director Sheila Wright, who resigned suddenly in September.

At least three strong DFL challengers — Jacob Frey, Cordelia Pierson and Peter Wagenius — are seeking the Minneapolis Senate seek vacated by Larry Pogemiller. The three-decade veteran legislator announced last week that he was resigning to serve as director of the state’s Office of Higher Education.