Official portrait of Minnesota state Sen. Jim Abeler (R-Anoka). (Source: Minnesota State Legislature)

During a meeting of the Liberty Tea Party Patriots on Nov. 6, 2024, state Sen. Jim Abeler (R-Anoka) appeared to tell the crowd he doesn’t think Minnesota deserves God’s mercy after Democratic victories in the state.

“This [election] was like good versus evil and the dark side versus the light and all this stuff,” Abeler said the day after the 2024 general election. “And I kept praying that God would be merciful, and I think he was. I don’t think Minnesota deserves a mercy, but there’s a remnant here, and here’s the fragment [the crowd] of that remnant.”

Abeler did not immediately respond to a request to comment and add further context to his words.

The state senator made a similar comment deriding the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party agenda during a radio interview in Sept. 2023. Abeler said his fellow lawmakers on the other side of the aisle were driven by “30-something progressive socialist women.”

The DFL held a trifecta in Minnesota from 2023-24. Under the leadership of Gov. Tim Walz, Senate President Bobby Joe Champion and House Speaker Melissa Hortman, the party was able to sign policies like universal school meals, guaranteed paid family and medial leave, affordable housing investments and a state child tax credit into law.

Walz and the DFL also pushed across a bill legalizing recreational marijuana use. Abeler gave a bizarre rant on the Senate floor in 2023 opposing the bill, where he referenced his prior use of the drug in college. While Abeler was serving as the chair of the Senate Human Services Reform and Policy Committee in 2022, he unknowingly approved a bill that would legalize TCH edibles.

Abeler has served in either the state House or Senate since 1999. The DFL’s trifecta is currently under threat as Republicans in the House are attempting to avoid power-sharing and seize power even though they do not have the required 68 representatives for a governing majority.