In 2012, Richard Carlbom helmed the successful Minnesotans United For All Families campaign which led to Minnesota becoming the first state in the nation to vote down an anti-marriage equality constitutional amendment. At the time, it was the largest grassroots campaign in Minnesotan history.
Now as chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor party, he’s leading another record-breaking campaign. With one week left until the final day of voting, Carlbom joined us to break down the numbers and share how Minnesotans can volunteer to get out the vote.
Watch our conversation
New Door Knocking Record
On October 22, the DFL reported that they had knocked on 2.3 million doors in 2026 — the largest single-year field operation in their party history.
“We’re now at 2.36 million,” Carlbom told The Gaily Show on October 27. “We went up 140,000 doors since that press release. I’m hoping to get to close to three million by 8 p.m. on November 3rd.”
After the DFL elected him chairperson in March 2025, Carlbom immediately set about to hire and deploy organizers throughout the state. But it was Operation Metro Surge that sparked a massive influx of activity.
“We had precinct caucuses in the midst of [Operation Metro Surge] in February and we had 37,000 people show up,” said Carlbom.
Hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans took to the streets after the Trump administration sent 3,000 federal agents to the state. They served as constitutional observers, mutual aid providers, poll workers, and protestors as ICE agents arrested hundreds of legal residents, detained thousands without providing them access to medicine or legal support, deployed gas and other chemical irritants at constitutional observers, parked outside the homes of school board members to intimidate them, used children as bait to detain people, and killed Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti.
The DFL alone trained over 8,000 constitutional observers.
After Trump retreated in February, Minnesotans stayed engaged.
“They’ve stuck with us and now we have volunteer activity off the charts,” said Carlbom. “It was only because thousands of these people who got involved for the first time during Metro Surge are remaining involved today.”
When asked what have voters been discussing with DFL organizers, Carlbom said, “the number one issue we hear about is the affordability crisis caused by Donald Trump and his rubber stamp Republicans. The war in Iran, the tariffs and the cuts and the big ugly bill that are going to really hurt healthcare.”
He observed that affordability has cut across voter demographics, such as geography or age. He further noted that for independent voters, cost of living concerns has outweighed other topics three-to-one. To drive the affordability point home to voters, the DFL launched trumpiscostingyou.com.
“It really is surprising to me to see an electorate that is wholly focused on one issue and one issue caused by the other side of the aisle,” said Carlbom.
Early Voting Surges
Already more than 540,000 Minnesotans have voted in the 2026 midterms, which according to Carlbom is a 65.8% increase from this same point in the 2022 midterms. Part of this increase can be attributed to Minnesota’s best-in-the-nation election administration. MIT ranked the state number one in its most recent Election Performance Index. It also follows recent trends of Democrats choosing to vote earlier either by mail or in-person. States across the country including Texas, Georgia, and Maine have seen similar surges of Democratic early voters.
Carlbom said that in Minnesota, “when you compare the partisanship of who’s already voted compared to 2022, we’re up 11 percent more Democratic than in 2022 and 13 percent more Democratic than 2024,” said Carlbom.
He also noted that according to their internal data this advantage has not been limited to statewide races, but also to every legislative district the DFL has targeted this cycle.
Election Security
Earlier this month, President Trump enthusiastically endorsed Michele Tafoya hours after his DOJ raided the home of Rep. Ilhan Omar. Critics claim the two events were linked and this is bolstered by the fact that the DOJ refuses to unseal the search warrant.
In a campaign post earlier this week, Trump wrote that the only way Tafoya could lose is if there is election fraud.
On the topic of election security, Carlbom recently appeared on a local TV program with the Chair of the Minnesota GOP, Alex Plechash. The program hosts questioned Plechash on election security and he broke with his party, admitting that Minnesota’s elections are secure.
“It happened live on TV,” said Carlbom. “He seemed a bit befuddled. He was kind of forced to admit that we do indeed have safe and secure elections.”
Carlbom emphasized that Minnesota’s elections are secure because they are run locally.
“Our election judges are people in our neighborhood. They’re our neighbors, they’re our friends, they’re people we see in the grocery store,” he said.
Trump Loves Tafoya, But Does Tafoya Like Minnesota?
The President is bullish on Tafoya’s chances, despite the fact that Tafoya has claimed multiple times, as recently as last fall, that she doesn’t like living in the state. She has also repeatedly commented that she didn’t see herself residing long-term in Minnesota.
It’s a confusing stance for a candidate who also claims to be pro-choice, but in other statements has committed to voting for Trump’s judicial nominees. Republican Senators Murkowski and Collins took the same route, which led to them confirming the very Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v Wade.
“You can’t be pro-choice and then promise to support Donald Trump’s judges 100 percent of the time. You just can’t do that,” said Carlbom.
Like Republicans across the country, Tafoya has tried to give the appearance that she is independent of Trump — largely because he has historic disapproval ratings. The President has become such a liability that even the Republican candidate for governor in Florida, Byron Donalds, a staunch Trump supporter, has scrubbed all references to the President from his campaign website.
But like Trump, Tafoya has shown little sympathy for voters on cost of living issues. On the campaign trail he’s said he doesn’t care about affordability, while Tafoya has said people concerned about gas prices should take “one less trip to Starbucks.”
“She’s a typical politician who will try to be all things to all people,” said Carlbom. “She’s not going to be independent. She’s a rubber stamp for Trump. People need to elect Peggy Flanagan.”
The final seven days
The DFL’s Get Out The Vote operation has 7,000 volunteer shifts left throughout Minnesota.
“We cannot take anything for granted,” said Carlbom. “If we fill those shifts between now and November 3rd at 8 p.m., we will be able to turn out this vote and we will be able to claim that massive electoral defeat of Donald Trump.”
Interested volunteers can register at dfi.org/gotv to find shifts in their neighborhoodl. For more information on voting locations, registering to vote, and more visit iwillvote.com or mnvotes.gov.
