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If you held a Duluth mayoral election this afternoon — right between the lunch rush at the Kwik Trip and the evening migration toward Sammy's — Roger Reinert would still win.
But the man would not be smiling. He’d be jogging uphill into a stiff November headwind with a backpack full of bricks and a cheering section that suddenly went quiet.
Because something happened in the 2025 city council elections that should rattle even a Navy man’s nerves: Reinert gambled big, publicly, and lost — twice.
And not polite, “close-call, tough-break” losses. Two open, full-throated, never-before-seen mayoral endorsements for Tara Swenson and Derek Medved — both of whom promptly got flattened by the progressive machine like cardboard under a snowplow.
That’s not just a political footnote. That’s a political autopsy.
An unprecedented move — and a brutal result
Mayors in Duluth traditionally keep their hands out of council races. Reinert broke that norm with the fanfare of a man confident he could shift the center of gravity at City Hall.
It backfired.
The message from voters and the unions couldn’t have been louder if they’d rented a plane to drag the banner over Canal Park: “Nice try, Mayor. This is still a progressive town, and we’ll decide who runs the council.”
Two endorsements. Two defeats. One political base suddenly showing its muscles in a way that should keep every moderate in town humble.
And the fallout is immediate: Reinert loses his 5–4 council majority.
He had, for a brief window, a governing coalition: a functional 5–4 vote alignment that allowed him to push budget adjustments, appointments, and reform tweaks without needing a clairvoyant to predict the outcome.
Now? It's gone.
He’s back to 4–5, staring at two years of committee bottlenecks, ideological scrums, and council meetings where his staff keeps repeating the word “collaboration” while the votes line up the other way.
This isn’t just inconvenient. It’s defining.
A mayor without a working majority isn’t a mayor — he’s a referee. And Duluth has a long history of treating mayors like referees they’d prefer to boo.
So, would Reinert win today?
Yes. But not the way he thinks.
Reinert still has the incumbency advantage, the name recognition, and the general sense that he’s steadier than the municipal budget graph. He still looks like the most competent adult in the building. Duluth voters appreciate that, even when they’re irritated.
He’d beat most challengers who might surface today — the progressives haven’t produced their next-star candidate yet, and the center-right opposition remains more of a rumor than a threat.
But this version of a victory is not the victory he imagined after his 2023 tsunami. It’s narrower. It’s noisier. It’s voters nodding politely instead of cheering.
Why? Because that council election was not routine. It was a message. A recalibration. A reminder that the mayor doesn’t set the political thermostat in this town — the organized left does.
And they just proved it.
The bottom line: Reinert wins today, but the next two years could break him
Reinert enters 2026 with:
. Two failed endorsements hanging around his neck
. A lost council majority
. A newly emboldened progressive bloc
. A budget minefield
. A downtown recovery that needs more than slogans and cheerleading
And something worse than an opponent: A motivated opposition coalition that knows it can beat him — because it just did, twice, with receipts.
If the election were today? Yes, Reinert wins.
If the election were a year from now, after two years of 4–5 council splits and levy arguments and union friction?
Let’s just say it’s a very different conversation.
In Duluth politics, nothing ages faster than a mayor’s momentum.
Howie, 71, is a veteran Duluth print journalist and publisher of HowieHanson.com, which he has operated for 21 years. He is the region’s first and only full-time online daily columnist, covering local news, politics, business, healthcare, education and sports with an independent, community-centered voice. Hanson has spent more than five decades reporting on issues that shape the Northland.
