As local journalists, we know your vote does make a difference in the policies that affect your daily life.
KAXE's election guides are meant to provide information to empower and inform about voting and elections. We don’t want to tell you how to vote, but we want to play a role in empowering you to vote by providing unbiased and trustworthy reporting.
In partisan races, more than one candidate per party triggers a primary. In nonpartisan races, the number of candidates must be more than double the number of seats for a primary to occur; the primary will narrow the number of candidates to two per seat.
Primaries are possible in all federal, state and county offices, but only a small number of Northern Minnesota cities and school districts have primaries.
Our Primary Election Guide includes primary candidates from all levels of government. Visit our full list of who's running for office in Northern Minnesota to see who else is on the ballot.
We reached out to every candidate in a primary race; races for which none of the candidates submitted answers were not included.
If you still have questions for the candidates, contact information for all those who've filed to run for office can be found at candidates.sos.state.mn.us.
How primary elections work
In partisan races or those with political parties, only one candidate in each party moves on. For example, the winner of the Republican primary for governor will be on the ballot in the November general election. The rest of the candidates are out of the running.
You can only vote for one party, but you choose which one, as Minnesota doesn’t have party registration.
In nonpartisan races, the primary narrows the pool of candidates down to twice the number of available seats. So if five candidates are running for county sheriff, the top two in the primary will be on the ballot in November. If 14 people are running for four seats on the school board, the top eight will advance.
Where and when do I vote?
There are three ways to vote in Minnesota: by mail, early in-person and in-person on Election Day.
Voting by mail began June 26. Some precincts in rural areas are mail ballot precincts, and ballots are automatically mailed to registered voters there. If you don’t live in a mail ballot precinct, you can still request a ballot at mnvotes.gov/absentee. You can return your ballot by mail, and those ballots must be received by no later than 8 p.m. on Election Day. Or, you can drop it off yourself at your county elections office no later than 5 p.m. on Election Day.
Early in-person voting also began June 26. You can go to your county’s early voting location(s), usually the courthouse or government center, and fill out an absentee ballot. You will need to know your MN ID or Social Security number to fill out the application.
Starting July 24, voters can cast ballots as part of the “early voting process,” which is more similar to voting on Election Day. You’ll fill out a short certificate, fill out a ballot and then put it into the ballot counter.
On Primary Election Day, Tuesday, Aug. 11, you can go to your local polling place to vote until 8 p.m. You can find your polling place at mnvotes.gov/pollfinder.
Local election officials also send teams of election judges to nursing homes and hospitals during the 35 days before the election and provide ballots to voters who live in the city or town where the facility is located. You can contact facility management or your local election office to find out when that will happen.
How do I register to vote?
You can register to vote or update your registration online at mnvotes.gov or by returning a paper form to your local elections office until July 21. You’ll need an email address and your driver’s license or the last four digits of your Social Security number.
You can also register when you vote, either early in-person or on Election Day. You’ll need to bring one proof of residence, like your driver’s license or a photo ID paired with a bill or lease.
Where can I find more information?
For more details on voting, you can visit mnvotes.gov, call 1-877-600-VOTE (8683), text 651-217-3862 or contact your county election office.
KAXE contacted every candidate three times using contact information submitted to the Secretary of State's Office to invite them to participate in our Election Guide.
Candidate responses have not been edited and are published exactly as submitted, including typos and formatting. All details, except endorsement and incumbency, were submitted by the candidate.
As necessary, our news team added contextual information clearly marked with an "editor's note" and in italics, though responses have not been uniformly fact-checked.
With our small team, we are unable to proactively fact check every statement made by candidates. But we will make every effort to make note of inaccuracies if they come to our attention. If you are aware of something we missed, email us!
KAXE is a Northern Minnesota public radio station, founded in 1976. We have signals in Grand Rapids (91.7), Bemidji (90.5) and Brainerd (89.9), and our broadcast can always be streamed at kaxe.org.
KAXE News began in 2023 and put together this Primary Election Guide. Our goal is to provide our audience with the highest-quality independent, fact-based news and information about the region we call home.
For more on our newsroom policies and how we do our work, visit our Policies page.
In 2025, Press Forward Minnesota announced KAXE News as a recipient of its 2025 Civic Health and Community Collaborations grant round. The grant funding supports our rural election coverage to ensure residents have the information they need to vote.
Meet the team
New in 2026, we're offering printable PDF versions for statewide candidates and several of the primary races in Northern Minnesota.
These free, printable guides were designed in partnership with Erica Peterson using KAXE reporting, information provided by candidates to both KAXE and the Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State.
Help us get these guides in as many hands as possible to inform local voters! Share on your socials, print copies and leave them in public places, email to your friends and neighbors.
Take a picture of yourself spreading the word and tag us on socials: @917kaxe on Facebook and @kaxe_kbxe on Instagram!
Contact our news team at news@kaxe.org with questions or comments or to report any errors.
How do I know your coverage is fair?
Our team will work together to ensure fairness is at the forefront in our reporting. We abide by the Society of Professional Journalists’ code of ethics and National Public Radio’s ethics handbook. We will be diligent in connecting with elected officials and candidates, and transparent about the responses we get from them.
What if I think you’re biased?
Tell us how you feel. We welcome all feedback from our audience because it helps us understand where we may need to provide greater transparency into how we cover elections. Our elections team is not part of any political party, following the rules of the SPJ Code of Ethics and the NPR Ethics handbook. The vast majority of local elections are nonpartisan, and we intend to focus on the issues that unite people across party lines.
What's on my ballot?
You can also enter your address in the Minnesota Voting Information Portal from the Secretary of State's office to see a sample ballot.
