“I cannot keep my name as a leader of a party that I do not believe is the best option for the voters of this state,” wrote IP state director Kyle Lewis.

Bruininks, who left the university president's post in 2011, assumes his position at the Bush Foundation effective Thursday. The foundation's former president Peter Hutchinson stepped down in January.

Ever since the end of last year’s three-week government shutdown, Republican legislative leaders have been touting their “Reform 2.0” agenda. They traveled across the state seeking ideas on how to streamline and improve government services. House Majority Leader Matt Dean estimates that he put 2,800 miles on his vehicle attending town hall meetings on the topic.

Tom Horner took a bigger risk than most when he embarked on his run for governor of Minnesota. The former Republican pundit and strategist turned Independence Party candidate alienated many of his old political allies when he switched party affiliation to challenge to GOP candidate Tom Emmer and DFLer Mark Dayton.

Mark Dayton became the first DFL governor-elect in 24 years under the unlikeliest of circumstances on Tuesday night, beating Republican Tom Emmer by a final margin of fewer than 10,000 votes out of more than 2 million cast. The exceedingly slim margin - less than half of one percent - will trigger an automatic recount.

At this stage in the governor's race four years ago, Republican Tim Pawlenty, DFLer Mike Hatch and the Independence Party's Peter Hutchinson had collected nearly $5 million in contributions, with the incumbent Pawlenty hauling in about three-fifths of that total.

At a Catholic Charities gathering last fall, Tom Horner and Stephen Imholte began chatting about the looming 2010 governor's race. They knew each other casually from years spent working on Republican campaigns and causes. But as they talked, it also became clear that they shared a growing frustration with the increasingly rightward tilt of the GOP in recent years. Both believed that there was an opening in 2010 for a centrist candidate to exploit the polarization of the two dominant political parties and the resulting gridlock at the Capitol.

In its 152-year voting history, Minnesota has elected only three third-party candidates for governor.

DFL gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton met with about 20 DFL House caucus members at the Minneapolis Club just before Labor Day weekend. Many in the group, which included a number of House DFL rank-and-file supporters of vanquished DFL endorsee Margaret Anderson Kelliher, had yet to sit down with their party's standard-bearer, and treated the event like a meet-and-greet.

Hours after Tuesday's DFL primary, the Minnesota GOP launched a TV ad attack calling DFLer Mark Dayton "erratic" and wondering out loud what frequency he was on.