The race for State Representative in West Duluth’s House District 7B keeps getting more interesting. John Derbis, a UM-Duluth student and longtime DFL activist, announced his candidacy today at the Boys and Girls Club in West Duluth. Durbis, 23, lives in West Duluth. His campaign presents this biography:
(Derbis) … was born in Minneapolis and raised in Duluth, attended Nettleton Magnet School, attended and graduated from Duluth Central High School, is currently attending the University of Minnesota-Duluth, and is a longtime activist for the local Democratic Farmer Labor Party.
Derbis announced his platform in his speech today. I was hiding in my Iron Range lair at the time, as usual, but will share his raison d’etre as soon as I can. I expect there will be some media coverage of the event today.
On one hand, Derbis faces enormous challenges entering this race. Council President Roger Reinert and union representative Marsh Stenersen enter this race with established constituencies and experience in running larger scale campaigns. But the Duluth DFL holds a core of young activists who might be interested in a candidate like Derbis. As more candidates enter the race, the more possible it becomes for all the conventional wisdom to go out the window. After all, there are no high profile races on the primary ballot. That means the winner of this primary will be the hardest working candidate, the one who gets people out to vote specifically for them.
So, here are the 7B DFLers so far, in order of announcement.
- Brandon Clokey (as of now, not yet filed)
- Roger Reinert (filed)
- Marsh Stenersen (filed)
- John Derbis (as of now, not yet filed)
Allen Kehr is the only announced Republican candidate, but has yet to file. I will continue to spread word of other candidates as I learn about them. I would bet on one or two more jumping into this very interesting race.
Aaron,
Typographical errors, it’s spelt D-e-r-b-i-s, not Durbis.
Fixed. Sorry. Don’t blog drunk, kids, it only hurts people.