State Rep. Kaohly Vang Her is launching what is likely the highest profile challenge to incumbent Melvin Carter for the St. Paul mayor’s office, where she once worked hand-in-hand with Carter.
Her, 52, declared her candidacy for mayor Monday morning, citing safe streets, economic development and strong schools as key issues in the city.
“I am a collaborative individual who has worked on unique solutions at the state level,” Her said. “I want to bring the same kind of innovation and collaboration to the city of St. Paul in order to make sure that we are a stable city that is able to weather out these next few years under this tumultuous Trump administration.”
Her is likely the strongest challenger to Carter since he first ran for the mayor’s office in 2017. But she still faces an uphill battle, according to Hamline University political science professor David Schultz, who lives in St. Paul.
“Carter should be vulnerable, but I’m not sure that he is,” Schultz said.
Carter’s Campaign Manager Tristan Voegeli said in a statement that Carter is proud of the “historic progress made over the past seven years,” including building “record levels” of affordable housing, adding protections for renters, establishing an inheritance fund for descendants of “Old Rondo” and forgiving medical debt for low-income families.
“We welcome substantive conversation about the future of our city and remain confident that Mayor Carter’s track record will speak for itself as DFLers decide who to support,” Voegeli said.
Her, a DFLer, represents District 64A in the Legislature, which includes the Macalester-Groveland, Cathedral Hill, Lexington-Hamline and Merriam Park. She lives in Mac-Groveland with her husband. They have two college-age daughters who study at the University of Minnesota.
Her said that St. Paul’s “core city services” and city operations aren’t working well, and that she would focus on them as mayor.
“It’s making sure potholes are filled, streets are plowed, that garbage is picked up,” Her said. “People who want to invest in our city are having trouble getting permits. Developers are trying to build more housing.”
She said the city’s public school district is facing more burdens because of the “dismantling” of the U.S. Department of Education.
“There has not been the partnership between our city and our school district to say, ‘How will this impact ensuring that our schools stay strong?’” Her said.
Her, who came to the United States as a Hmong refugee in 1976 at the age of 3, has served as a state representative for the last seven years and would step down if elected mayor.
Her worked for Carter in the mayor’s office
Her worked as policy director for Carter’s first mayoral term. In that role, she led his early priorities like setting up college savings accounts for newborns, and establishing the city’s Office of Financial Empowerment, among other work.
She declined to directly comment on her former boss’ performance as mayor or his reelection platform. Instead, she said she’s been asked by supporters for many years to consider a run for mayor, and that the assassination of her colleague and friend, House Speaker Melissa Hortman, on June 14 moved her to join the race.
“She’s always said that these seats don’t belong to us, that we have to earn the right to represent people and to do this work,” Her said of Hortman.
The state of the mayor’s race so far, Her said, has not involved “vigorous debates” over “ideas and solutions.”
“I hadn’t seen door-knockers out sharing ideas and saying what we’d do differently for our city,” she said. “I thought, ‘Are we really having engagement from people who want to hold that role?’”
Her said she voted no on the citywide 2023 ballot initiative that instituted rent control in the city, capping rent increases at 3% each year. The measure passed, but the City Council has watered it down since then, adding measures like 20-year exemptions for new developments.
“It’s important for us to build more units, to build affordable units, to build stable housing,” Her said. “Rent control, depending on how it’s structured, could do the opposite of what we are looking for.”
Her said she’s encouraged by changes to the rent control policy, but added, “We need to be ready to evaluate additional changes to get our housing where it needs to be.”
Her voted in 2023 for a ballot initiative that passed raising the city’s sales tax by 1% to 9.875%, making it the highest sales tax in the state.
“I do understand it is the most regressive tax you can charge,” she said. “But the city has very few levers that it can pull in order to generate revenues. We are the capital city, and we have some unique challenges. We have more government-owned buildings and land, more churches and more universities than most cities.”
Property taxes have also gone up in recent years, and Carter and the City Council could not agree on a budget together. Carter made several line-item vetoes that the Council attempted to override.
Property tax increases on city homeowners between the city and county went up double digits this year. Her said these increases hurt St. Paul’s residents, but again stressed that the city has only so many ways it can raise money.
Her said she would work closely with the City Council on the budgeting process and ask the following questions: “How are we doing our city core functions well, and what are the things [we are doing] which are not considered core city functions? How do we then create a budget that is fiscally responsible and sustainable.”
On crime, Her pointed to her role at the Legislature creating a criminal statute on carjackings, which had previously been prosecuted as robberies. She said public safety issues in St. Paul go beyond violent crime, noting that she recently met with business owners who are dealing with a spree of smashed windows at their properties.
St. Paul, unlike many cities, “bears the burden” of paying for some emergency services like ambulances, Her said.
“Have we invested in the infrastructure to address this?” she said. “We have to look at public safety from a much broader lens, and not just to say we were only addressing violent crimes in our city.”
Is Carter vulnerable to a challenger?
Schultz said the fact that the City Council and Carter clashed on the most recent budget and the fact that a prominent elected official is running against him shows the possible beginning of a break in the city’s DFL that could grow similar to the break in Minneapolis’s DFL.
“It shows dissatisfaction, clearly, with Carter,” he said. “Whether or not it’s strong enough to break through what I think is a pretty good wall that Carter has, I’m not sure.”
Carter’s potential vulnerabilities, Schultz said, is centered around housing shortages, crime and businesses leaving the city — especially in the Hamine-Midway neighborhood along part of University Avenue, which recently lost Walmart, Herbergers, and TJ Maxx, and will soon lose the Cub grocery store.
“On a lot of scores, the city is going in the wrong direction,” Schultz said. “Having said that, St. Paul is more of a one-person machine than Minneapolis is, and Carter right now has got a pretty good monopoly on power.”
After immigrating to the United States as a child, Her’s family lived around Chicago for a few years, before moving to Appleton, Wisconsin, where she grew up and where many members of her clan, the Vang clan, resided. Her father moved to Minnesota for work when she was a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; she moved to St. Paul after graduation.
Her work in the Legislature included leading the Reproductive Freedom Caucus and helping create the Minnesota Asian Pacific (MAP) Legislative Caucus.
Carter made history in 2017 when he was elected the city’s first Black mayor. Her could make history as the first Hmong and first woman elected to the position.
“It means a lot,” she said of the potential to make history. “This is the 50th year of Hmong people in the United States, so that has a lot of significance. But to be honest, it was not something that weighed into whether I would do this or not.”
Other candidates running for mayor include Yan Chen, a University of Minnesota biophysicist, and Mike Hilborn, who runs a restoration company.
Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified the boundaries of Her’s House district and her previous role in the mayor’s office.
