I don't hand out endorsements to be polite, and this site doesn't do politics-as-usual. Our voter guides are strictly neutral — facts and law, both candidates, same scrutiny — and the Hennepin County Attorney guide holds to that rule. This page is different. This page is me, telling you where I stand and why.
I'm endorsing Anders Folk for Hennepin County Attorney.
The office is a prosecutor's office
Strip away the campaign noise and the Hennepin County Attorney has one statutory job description: prosecute felonies, run the largest prosecutorial office in Minnesota, and give straight legal counsel to county government. It is not a legislature. It is not a think tank. It is a working courtroom operation serving 1.3 million people, and the person who runs it should have spent a career doing the actual work.
Anders Folk has. Assistant U.S. Attorney prosecuting terrorism, narcotics, and financial fraud. First Assistant U.S. Attorney. Then Acting U.S. Attorney for Minnesota in 2021 — the year this state needed its chief federal prosecutor to be steady more than any year in living memory.
Accountability in both directions
Here is what tells you who Anders Folk is. As Acting U.S. Attorney, his office filed the federal civil-rights indictment of Derek Chauvin and opened the federal pattern-or-practice investigation of the Minneapolis Police Department. The same office, the same year, prosecuted the men who bombed the Dar al-Farooq mosque and pursued violent extremists of every stripe.
That is the whole job in one résumé: hold violent offenders accountable, and hold the government's own agents accountable, with the same law and the same spine. Most candidates talk about that balance. Folk has already done it, under the brightest spotlight this state has ever aimed at a prosecutor.
Service tells you something
Anders Folk was commissioned into the Marine Corps during law school and went on active duty as a judge advocate after September 11th — four years prosecuting and defending Marines in courts-martial. I served as an Air Force JAG officer, including in Afghanistan, so I can tell you exactly what that training builds: the discipline to follow facts wherever they lead, the backbone to deliver unwelcome answers to powerful people, and the habit of putting the mission ahead of your own career. You cannot fake that formation and you cannot shortcut it.
Minnesotans should weigh that kind of service heavily when they hire their chief law-enforcement officers. I did, and it's part of why I'm confident in this endorsement.
About the machine
The DFL machine endorsed Folk's opponent, Rep. Cedrick Frazier — along with most of the establishment slate that comes with it. I want to be careful here, because our standard is receipts, not name-calling: Rep. Frazier is a serious public servant with a real record, and our guide gives it to you straight. This endorsement is not a knock on him. It is a judgment about readiness — about which candidate has actually run complex prosecutions and led prosecutors at the highest level.
But I'll say this too, as someone who just ran against the machine and lived to tell about it: the county attorney's office is nonpartisan for a reason. 103,743 Minnesotans proved in August that voters, not party operators, decide who serves. In a nonpartisan race, a party endorsement is a data point — not an instruction.
Hennepin County: on November 3, vote for Anders Folk for County Attorney. Then hold him to every word — that part is your job, and mine.
— Dave Madgett
Attorney • Captain, USAF JAG Corps (veteran) • 2026 DFL candidate for Attorney General