Lyft is trying to buy the MN Mayoral Race

Big tech. What seemed once to perhaps be the beacon of progressive reform with tools and technological advances, has become the shadowbroker for the worst parts of our lives. From Elon Musk doing the Nazi salute on live tv (twice,) to AirBNB destroying the housing market, these fucking “disruptors” keep finding new ways to make everything worse. Rideshares are terrible for reasons that you probably already know, but now Lyft is spending over a million dollars to sway the Mayoral and City Council Elections in Minneapolis

Interestingly… Minneapolis is not in Wisconsin, so what gives? Well my cousin Scooby-Dum is a reporter for the Minneapolis Pomeranian and he has the scoop. You see for the last couple of years the gig workers in the city of Minneapolis have been fighting to guarantee minimum wage for those work for rideshare companies. There is a complicated history that exposes “”Progressive” Tim Walz as a demon, but ultimately ends with the state of Minnesota ensuring that drivers make at least $1.28 a mile and $.31 per minute. This was the compromise, and sometimes still results in drivers making less than minimum wage but hey, it’s good enough for Tim Walz, and to be fair it is a better deal for drivers than we have in Wisconsin.

This story is the gold standard of change for working people that can be accomplished through electoral organizing. A sustained pressure campaign by activists in seats of power with their communities behind them pushing back against things that we all know we hate. Lyft and Uber are both terrible companies that promised an easy way for people to make a little extra money, and a cheap/convenient way for people to get safely from point a, to point b. What we actually got from them is a series of sexual assaults, the disruption of the far more equitable taxi industry, and the gig-economy. Everyone knows that rideshares are terrible, but it’s the new status quo and a mockery of the real disruption that would help actual working people.

Minneapolis Mayoral Election

Apparently the regulations on rideshare haven't hurt them so badly that they can’t spend money to rig an election. If you are unfamiliar (because you don’t live in Minneapolis, again I promise this is relevant) State Senator Omar Fateh is on the cusp of winning the mayoral race on Tuesday, November 4th. Fateh is the one who championed the bill that set real regulations on the techno-libretarians in the first place, before that bill was dismantled by Tim Walz.Lyft joins a cohort of funders who are spending a boatload to prop up current mayor Jacob Frey and the city council members who will be amenable to his centrist nonsense.

Frey is the establishment candidate for mayor. He is running for reelection into his third term, and frankly it seems that the city is a little tired of the guy. You may remember that 2020 was a hot bed for political unrest following the state murder of George Floyd. While the bastard cop MOST responsible for his death received “justice” and is serving his 22 year sentence in prison in Texas, the mayor has failed to meet the moment on the demand that would ultimately prevent the same thing from happening again. Frey has kept that same tepid energy on a host of issues, and just had 11 protestors arrested outside his office this past week for telling him to better defend immigrants in the city.

The front runner in the race is Fateh, a democratic socialist similar to another notable mayoral candidate. In fact he has been dubbed by some as the “Mamdani of the Midwest.” Which is cute I guess, and definitely speaks to some of the similarities (both are Muslim, young, Democratic socialists, whose campaign is laser focused on affordability.) If this comparison is channeling any of that energy from NYC and is helping his campaign then it is a good thing, but Fateh deserves a little more credit than living in Mamdani’s shadow. His work defending rideshare employees displays his willingness to fight for the little guy, and his commitment to his immigrant community. 

Fateh has political gumption, and refuses to humor meaningless progressive gestures. Governor Tim Walz vetoed the proposal ensuring rideshare drivers made at least minimum wage, opting instead to form a task force around the issue. Fateh was then appointed to the task force and rejected the appointment, signalling that he also saw it as an empty way to do nothing while appearing as though he was. Instead the State Senator went back to the legislature and continued organizing around the issue, forcing Walz and Lyft to come to the table.

On Lefty Electoralism

In late 2018 we were introduced to “The Squad.” It is hard to believe that was seven years ago, but building off some of the momentum of the Bernie Sanders campaign in 2016, these women created an archetype of progressive challenger upsetting the Democratic status quo through legwork, charisma, and being right about the things that they said (though there is meaningful critique of their ability to actually legislate on lefty principles.) I think that a lot of us on the left saw this as something of a way forward to use electoralism to confront fascism with leftist populism. Indeed the squad grew with the likes of Jamaal Bowman, Summer Lee, and Cori Bush, but the model was also deployed for city council seats like in LA with Nithya Ramen. 

Unfortunately Bush and Bowman both lost their seats in 2024, which exposed somewhat the flaw in this way of handling business. Furthermore, we have not seen any of the squad-like members from “bigger races” (like Charles Booker running for Senate in Kentucky) have success. Even the Squad poster child Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) has become increasingly cozy with the establishment Democrats, voting with them to break a railworker strike, voting ‘present’ instead of explicitly against funding Israel’s genocide, and many other betrayals of her socialist roots.  The independent spirit taking on big money (and not being corrupted by it) seems to work best in small, walkable precincts.. This is where candidates like Fateh and Mamdani bring innovation, as both have utilized rank choice voting to form rank with likeminded politicians and box out the status quo candidates.

This played well in the Democratic primary of New York City, with Brad Lander and Mamdani forming a “anyone but Cuomo” pact (though Cuomo didn’t get the message I guess.) Similarly Fateh’s campaign has worked with the other insurgent candidates Jazz Hampton and DeWayne Davis to say “hey, vote for one of us, but don’t rank Frey!” I guess we will know on Tuesday night if this strategy is ultimately successful for either of them. 

Great, But We Live in Wisconsin

In Wisconsin we do not have rank choice voting, and if these two are successful, then I do not think that Democratic party loyalists will be tripping over themselves to make it more widely available nationwide. We do however have two excellent candidates for governor in 2026. State Assemblyperson Francesca Hong, and State Senator Kelda Roys both present compelling platforms for opposing not only Republican shitheads in Wisconsin, but for opposing Donald Trump’s fascist agenda coming to the state. Furthermore they have real plans (with experience organizing legislatively) to not only reduce harm, but make the state a better place to live. 

We at the Beagle have made no secret that  Francesca Hong is our favorite to win, but at least I will go on the record saying that Kelda Roys would be a huge improvement over Evers, or anything the centrist field of successors is presenting. I would really just like one of them to win, and in a lot of ways it reminds me of the Warren/Sanders divide in the primary of 2020. That was a vote that split a lot of people who had reasonable concerns with the other candidate, and potentially handed the vote to Biden. I would hate to see that happen in Wisconsin with the governor, and I hope to see some sort of united coalition forming behind whichever candidate has the real lead come next summer.