The primary all-woman city council in St. Paul’s history is inching closer to becoming a reality, though the outcomes of races remained up within the air Tuesday night.

“I’m at all times within the business of constructing history,” Anika Bowie, who led within the crowded Ward 1 race, told MinnPost as election results continued to trickle in Tuesday night. “It’ll be amazing to have this slate of ladies to work alongside.”

Incumbents Rebecca Noecker in Ward 2, Mitra Jilali in Ward 4 and Nelsie Yang in Ward 6 all easily surpassed the 50% threshold of first selection votes needed to retain their seats, each of them beating their challengers by no less than two dozen percentage points. 

Hwa Jeong Kim in Ward 5 garnered slightly below 52% of the ward’s first selection votes, securing her the victory.

In Ward 3, Saura Jost received 49% of the primary selection votes, and released an announcement declaring victory early Wednesday.

“I’m able to roll up my sleeves and work with everyone within the ward to construct that future,” Jost said.

Her opponent, Isaac Russell, had called to concede the race and posted on X: “While we don’t agree on several issues, it is necessary that our community moves forward together. Her success is Ward 3’s and St. Paul’s success.”

But within the two remaining races – Bowie in Ward 1 at slightly below 40% and Cheniqua Johnson in Ward 7 at 41% – the winner will likely be decided by tallying second and third selection votes.

About 30% of St. Paul voters who were registered prior to Election Day solid ballots for City Council.

Who backed the candidates financially

In mid-August, five City Council candidates — incumbent Jalali (Ward 4), together with Bowie (Ward 1), Jost (Ward 3), Kim (Ward 5) and Johnson (Ward 7) — all filed for the ballot on the identical day, earning headlines for his or her efforts to usher in the primary all-woman council in St. Paul’s history.

These women are each ideologically distinct. For instance, only two of the six — Kim and one other incumbent, Nelsie Yang (Ward 6) — sought and won the endorsement of the Twin Cities Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

But each of the six candidates on this coalition had the support of the organizing powerhouse TakeAction Minnesota Political Fund. As of late October, TakeAction — which has long rallied voters in local and statewide races around DFL and left-wing causes — had spent nearly $50,000 for outreach on these six candidates’ behalf, though most of that cash went to support Johnson and Bowie.

Campaign staff, family and friends greeted Bowie with applause as she entered the Gnome Craft Pub on Selby Avenue after polls had closed Tuesday night. She expressed confidence that she’d pull out a victory even before the primary batch of results had been reported.

“4 years ago, I made the choice to run,” she told the attendees. “Regardless that we didn’t get the result we wanted 4 years ago, we made it occur today.”

Andre Torkelson, a political consultant and Ward 1 resident, said he voted for Bowie because of her grassroots campaign that relied on community outreach, involved numerous door knocking and met voters wherever they were. He said his stances on issues like rent control and public safety aligned with Bowie’s platform as well, and because the youngest candidate at age 31, he said she’ll bring a fresh perspective to City Hall.

“She stands for the entire things that I care about,” he said. “She’s willing to take heed to every different viewpoint but additionally arise for what she believes in, which I believe is vital.”

RELATED: Left-wing coalition makes gains in Minneapolis City Council election

Concerned that these “activist” candidates would sweep into office, a coalition of labor unions and business interests formed their very own PACs to support their preferred candidates.

In early October, the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 49, the North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters; and Minnesota Multi Housing Association, which represents residential landlords, all pooled greater than $220,000 right into a recent PAC: Service Saint Paul.

The funders behind Service Saint Paul don’t agree on every issue, explained the IUOE’s Jason George, who chairs the PAC.

“But we agree that the town government needs to be focused on core services and never a few of the ideological discussions which might be happening,” George said. “We desired to be sure that the general public was educated about candidates focused on plowing the roads, fixing the potholes, ensuring that we’ve got adequately staffed police and fire, and that we’re constructing reasonably priced housing in St. Paul.”

Service Saint Paul endorsed James Lo (Ward 1), Isaac Russell (Ward 3) and Gary Unger (Ward 6). In addition they said Yan Chen (Ward 1) was an appropriate selection. The PAC spent greater than $121,000 backing these candidates through mid-October, and still had nearly $99,000 left to spend within the campaign’s final weeks.

Lo, who awaited results alongside supporters at King Thai restaurant on University Avenue, said during an interview that the funding allowed him to rent paid campaign staff and spend on ads.

“It gave us superb leverage, by way of mailings, by way of literature, by way of our ability to do outreach in our campaign,” he said. “Money wasn’t really a problem so we could do the entire things that we planned to do – that’s a great feeling to have funding to have the opportunity to do these projects to advertise our campaign.”

Each of the candidates endorsed by the PAC, nevertheless, did not win their race.

A part of this coalition, Minnesota Multi Housing, also established its own smaller PAC called St. Paul Works, which spent slightly below $8,000 to support Pa Der Vang (Ward 7).

In Ward 1, probably the most crowded of the St. Paul council races with eight candidates vying for the seat, Bowie has greater than twice as many votes as the subsequent closest candidate, James Lo. In third place was Omar Syed who, together with Lo, was considered one of three candidates to lift greater than $100,000 through late October. Bowie was on her approach to defeating each of them despite raising just over half that quantity at $51,000.

One big issue: rent control

In stark contrast to Minneapolis — where City Hall legislative fights are steadily boisterous and acrimonious — the St. Paul City Council has garnered a repute for being less rancorous and more collegial. This has been especially the case since late 2022, when 4 St. Paul council incumbents announced their intentions to retire at the tip of their terms.

But St. Paul’s new-look council will likely tackle some big — and potentially divisive — debates in 2024.

For starters: rent control. Each proponents and skeptics of the ordinance have promised to revisit the town’s rent stabilization ordinance — for various reasons.

St. Paul voters passed limits on rent increases two years ago, but in September 2022, the City Council subsequently watered down the ordinance to exempt newly-constructed properties and permit landlords to use for exceptions. Kim, Jalali, Yang and Johnson have all expressed interest in restoring parts of the stricter policy that voters initially approved.

In a Pioneer Press op-ed, Jalali said the longer term council “must work to uphold, strengthen and improve [the rent stabilization ordinance] as we’d with every other policy.”

“This ordinance, I believe, personally must be reworked,” Johnson said at a League of Women Voters forum in September. “It’s not necessarily, immediately, working for the people it was purported to.”

RELATED: St. Paul voters pass sales tax hike

In her DSA candidate questionnaire, Kim said she supported restoring the stricter policy originally approved by the voters, but was also enthusiastic about a compromise that made gains for renters without undermining the policy altogether.

In contrast, Russell had said he would have loosened the town’s limits on rent control, extending the present exemption for brand spanking new construction from 20 years to 30 years — in hopes of spurring development.

The rent control issue was amongst the numerous motivating Service Saint Paul’s backers to spend heavily on the race. George said the policy has been “a disaster for the town” — and that the City Council could have done greater than it did in 2022 to exempt more properties from rent control.

“The exemptions that [the council] tried to place in place didn’t go far enough,” said George. “If you happen to actually roll those back … you’re going to do more damage.”

Other candidates had also expressed a more general interest in revisiting the ordinance. Lo said he’d need to make sure the city’s striking a correct balance between the goals of renters and property owners.

“I’ll proceed to fight for tenants here in order that they have rights and responsibilities, and so they feel empowered to go against a nasty landlord,” Lo said in an interview before results had are available. “But these small family-owned properties, additionally they need resources and support as well.”

“Ever since rent stabilization was put in place, development slowed down,” Ward 7 candidate Vang noted at a September forum. “That’s hurting our housing stock.”

But throughout the campaign, other candidates said the ordinance is advantageous because it stands now — or are no less than withholding judgment until more data is out there.

“We only have like 10 months of information at the moment,” said Jost in an interview with MinnPost, adding later that rent control is a “very complex issue with numerous moving parts.”

Other issues to observe

Rent control isn’t the one issue the brand new council is prone to tackle.

Service Saint Paul formed partially out of concern that funding for the St. Paul Police Department may very well be threatened. Some candidates the PAC opposed have called for — as Yang put in her MinnPost candidate questionnaire — a more “restorative justice approach to public safety.” That approach could involve shifting funds away from the department and toward emerging alternative responses to public safety or mental health calls.

In August, the St. Paul City Council overrode a veto from Mayor Melvin Carter to send a proposed $20 million property tax increase to voters in November 2024. The proposal, authored by Yang and Noecker (Ward 2), would use the funds to cover child care costs for youngsters under age 5. The cash can be prioritized for low-income families.

Nonetheless, most of the proposal’s details have yet to be hashed out — and the brand new council will likely play a job. (Jalali was considered one of the 2 council members to vote against the ballot measure.)

In interviews with MinnPost, Jost said she’d monitor the town’s newly-approved zoning rules — which permit for duplexes and triplexes on almost any residential lot in the town — for unintended consequences.

Candidates had their eyes on St. Paul’s sales tax increase, which might generate nearly $1 billion for road and parks improvements. Now that the measure passed  — raising the town’s sales tax to the best rate in Minnesota — the brand new council will supervise the spending of those funds.

Among the many projects the sales tax would likely fund? The Summit Avenue reconstruction and bike trail project, which cleared the City Council easily last spring, but has continued to encourage opposition from well-funded and well-organized neighbors determined to maintain the problem on the front burner.

After which, after all, there’s garbage collection — a problem that has inspired debate in St. Paul for the last half-decade. When the present trash contract expires in spring 2025, city staff have said they’d prefer to try to explore adding a municipally-run garbage collection service to the combination of personal firms that currently pick up the town’s trash. That issue will likely land in the brand new City Council’s bin, too.