Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party
The Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) is a major political party in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The party currently holds all statewide executive offices, both senatorial seats, and four of the eight congressional seats. The party has a strong base in the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota. The DFL, once also dominant in some traditionally working-class rural areas, like the Iron Range, has begun to rapidly lose support in those areas since 2010. Some of the party’s main focuses are economic growth, environmental protection, education, and government accountability. It  was formed by a merger between the Minnesota Democratic Party and the Minnesota Farmer–Labor Party in 1944. The DFL is one of two state Democratic Party affiliates with a different name, the other being the North Dakota Democratic–Nonpartisan League Party. History. The DFL was created on April 15, 1944, with the merger of the Minnesota Democratic Party and the larger Farmer–Labor Party. Leading the merger effort were Elmer Kelm, the head of the Minnesota Democratic Party and the founding chairman of the DFL; Elmer Benson, effectively the head of the Farmer–Labor Party by virtue of his  leadership of its dominant left-wing faction; and rising star Hubert H. Humphrey, who chaired the Fusion Committee that accomplished the union and then went on to chair its first state convention. By the party's second convention in 1946, tensions had re-emerged between members of the two former parties. While the majority of delegates supported left-wing policies, Humphrey managed to install a more conservative ally, Orville Freeman, as party secretary. Some Farmer–Labor leaders such as Benson moved to the Progressive Party. Freeman was elected the state's first DFL governor in 1954. Important members of the  party have included Humphrey and Walter Mondale, who each went on to be United States senators, vice presidents of the United States, and unsuccessful Democratic nominees for president; Eugene McCarthy, a U.S. senator who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968 as an anti-Vietnam War candidate; and Paul Wellstone, a U.S. senator from 1991 to 2002 who became an icon of populist progressivism. Current elected officials. Members of Congress. U.S. Senate. Democrats have held both of Minnesota's seats in the U.S. Senate since 2009: U.S. House of Representatives. Out of the eight seats Minnesota is apportioned in  the U.S. House of Representatives, four are held by Democrats: Statewide officials. The Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party controls all five of the elected statewide offices: