**EXTRA CUT BELOW**
Michelle Fischbach resigning her state Senate seat and officially taking the oath as lieutenant governor sets up a high-stakes special election this fall in District 13, the Payneville area. If Democrats win that election they’d re-take the majority in the Minnesota Senate, but Carleton College analyst Steven Schier says, “Fischbach got 68 percent of the vote in the last election. That is one of the reddest districts in the state, and I think very unlikely that Democrats could take that seat from the GOP.”
Patty Wetterling is one of the names being tossed around to run for the seat. Carleton College analyst Steven Schier says about that: “Patty Wetterling has run before and has not had great electoral success, so it’s not at all clear that she would be the Democratic solution in that district.” Wetterling ran for U-S House in Minnesota’s 6th District in 2004 but lost to Mark Kennedy, and lost to Michele Bachmann two years later.