Oak Park, Minnesota is a small city located in Hennepin County. The city is governed by a mayor-council system, with five elected council members and a directly elected mayor. The current mayor, Mark Vierling, has served since 2018. The council is responsible for enacting local ordinances and approving the annual budget which includes taxes and various services such as police, fire protection, health care, parks, libraries and more. The political atmosphere in Oak Park is characterized by open dialogue and collaboration between citizens and their representatives. Through initiatives like citizen surveys to gauge public opinion on various issues of importance to the city, residents are actively involved in the governance process. Additionally, the city has established an advisory committee comprised of local citizens that can provide input into decisions made by the mayor and council members. It is evident that Oak Park takes their politics seriously as they strive to ensure that residents have their voices heard when it comes to shaping policy decisions that affect their lives.
The political climate in Oak Park, MN is very conservative.
Marshall County, MN is very conservative. In Marshall County, MN 25.3% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 72.8% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 1.9% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, Marshall county remained overwhelmingly Republican, 72.8% to 25.3%.
Marshall county voted Republican in five of the last six Presidential elections (2008 went Democratic).
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
Oak Park, MN is very conservative.
Marshall County, Minnesota is very conservative.
Minnesota is leaning liberal.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index is based on recent voting in national elections, federal campaign contributions by local residents, and consumer personality profiles.
VoteWord™
Displaying 20 years of Presidential voting, visualized in one word.
Oak Park, Minnesota: R R d R R R
How It Works:
Here at BestPlaces, we were looking at the voting patterns since the 2000 election and realized that we could express the results of each election as one letter. R if the Republican Party candidate won, D if the Democratic Party candidate won and I if the Independent Party candidate won. The six elections (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) would be expressed as six-letter word (R R D R R).
Then we went a little further and added the dimension of magnitude. If the difference of victory was greater than 10 percent, the letter is upper case, and lower case if the difference was less than 10 percent. This allows us to see interesting voting patterns at just a glance.
Here's the VoteWord for Iowa d r d d r. In the last six elections the state has been closely contested, voting narrowly for the Republican Party candidate in 2016 and 2020 after voting for the Democratic Party in 2008 and 2012. Virginia (r r d d d D) has voted for the Democratic Party in the last three elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in Oak Park, MN
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 23 contributions totaling $2,924 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $127 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 27 contributions totaling $4,050 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $150 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)