Thompson challenges Chowdhury in Ward 12

As the city prepares for the 2025 election in November, campaigning is picking up across in the city, including in the Southside’s Ward 12 where two candidates, Ward 12 City Council Member Aurin Chowdhury and District 2 Park Board Commissioner Becka Thompson are actively campaigning.
They are both seeking the Democratic Farmer Labor (DFL) Party endorsement, that could be determined at the party’s Ward 12 convention on Saturday, May 3, 2025 at Sanford Middle School, 3524 42nd Ave S.
Chowdhury, who was elected to the council in 2023, said, “I feel confident about my prospects of getting the endorsement.” She “plans on running for re-election to keep delivering on the work we have started together in the 12th Ward.”
Thompson was not endorsed by the DFL when she won her park board seat in 2021. When asked about running without the party endorsement she said, “I will be on the ballot no matter what.”

Who they are
Chowdhury is a first-generation Bengali-American and daughter of working-class immigrants. Prior to being elected to the council, she worked as a community organizer and, more recently, as a policy aide to Ward 9 Council Member Jason Chavez.
“I am best qualified for this job because I have nearly 10 years of community organizing, policy, and government experience,” said Chowdhury. “I have served through the toughest times, from helping deliver constituent services at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic or working with community on the ground following the murder of George Floyd. I am at my core a committed public servant. This has transferred into a Ward 12 office that is accessible to and informed by the residents of the ward. A Ward 12 office that gets good stuff done.”
Thompson attended Minnehaha Academy, and the University of Minnesota where she graduated with a degree in mathematics. Since then, she has tutored at Avenues for Homeless Youth, taught financial literacy to teens, and introduced city kids to the Boundary Waters. She also taught for nearly two years at South High School before being dismissed. Thompson said at the time that her termination was in retaliation for her requests for school administrators to report violent incidents to the central office.
Thompson stated that her experience being a single mom is one thing that has best prepared her to be a council member.
“When I ‘came out’ I was married to a man, he didn’t take it well,” Thompson said. “That story is mine but also belongs to my son, so I don’t talk of it often – but the hardship I knew and the ways I had to navigate bankruptcy, custody, courts, bureaucracy, lawyers, homelessness, and profound bigotry has helped me not only understand systems but understand the hardship first hand that people go through just trying to provide an honest life for themselves and their children. I didn’t want that path, but it has prepared me more than anything else.”
Both candidates appear to be fundraising on their websites, but Minneapolis campaign finance records shows that Chowdhury has $14,161 and Thompson has $0. Thompson’s campaign committee does not appear to have registered yet, which is required if a candidate spends or collects $750 on a campaign.
When asked about Thompson’s campaign, Josh Martin, a DFL activist who has been tracking all the city campaigns this year, said, “Something’s definitely off since her own website says she’s raised over $8,000, which is not really enough for her to run a competitive campaign, but it’s more than enough for her to need to file a report.”
“My campaign finance didn’t post in February when I thought I first filed,” Thompson said when asked about it on April 14. “I was only alerted to this last Friday unfortunately. I’m updating and hope to have it fully in with the city by tomorrow.” (View updated page here)
Chowdhury is endorsed by the AFL-CIO, Unite HERE, OPEIU Local 12, Women Winning, the Sunrise Movement, The Minnesota Young DFL, Stonewall DFL, and Outfront Minnesota, as well as elected officials Attorney General Keith Ellison, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, Hennepin County Commissioner Angela Conley, school board member Lori Norvell, park board commissioner Tom Olsen, as well as state legislators Zaynab Mohamed, Samantha Sencer-Mura, and Emma Greenman. Chowdhury has also been endorsed by the independent expenditure committee, Minneapolis for The Many.
Thompson is on the All of Mpls independent expenditure committee list of recommended candidates. She did seek the AFL-CIO endorsement, but did not receive it. When asked about endorsements she said, “I haven’t sought many. This is by design. I know that Ward 12 is a diverse group of people. My friends are everywhere. I know that they trust me.”

What they prioritize
Thompson’s website says “to create a better city for everyone once again, we can focus on few key areas. These are safe and stable streets, lowering the cost of living and being a good neighbor.”
“Being a good neighbor might seem simple, but it means, to me, leading with integrity and honesty, working with anyone willing to behave in an honorable manner, living in alignment with my word, and treating others how I want to be treated,” Thompson said. ”It means fighting for our waterways and our parks because that is what makes our city beautiful. It means partnering with other city organizations, namely MPRB and MPS, to discover partnerships to better serve our children.”
In her We Love Mpls questionnaire she lists safety, fiscal responsibility and rebuilding Lake Street as priorities, as well.
Thompson calls for “amending the MPLS 2040 comprehensive plan, or rewriting it entirely in the Minneapolis 2050 plan,” and says that the 2040 plan is “largely responsible for challenges in rebuilding Lake Street.”
Chowdhury’s list of priorities includes affordable housing, public safety, addressing homelessness, protecting renters, supporting small businesses, climate resiliency, police accountability, good governance and strong constituent services, and support for people with disabilities, seniors, and parks.
To improve housing stability she intends to “continue expanding homeownership opportunities, especially for working families, build partnerships to bring a much needed affordable senior housing project to the 12th Ward, create a locally-owned social housing program, where the city will develop, own, and manage housing units, work to remove zoning restrictions that make it harder to build mixed-income housing, and advocate for more public housing and support land use policy changes to allow wider availability of accessory dwelling units.”
When asked about what the city council and mayor are doing right and wrong, Thompson said, “Honestly there is a lot of issues with our city right now. I will say this, knowing most all of them as people, what they do well is they care. I genuinely believe they all care about the city. My critique is how they administer that.”
When it comes to “general maintenance of the public” however, she thinks they are doing poorly. “We are in a lot of fiscal trouble and that magnifies as it echoes out to the ‘least of these,’ children and working families.”
Chowdhury identified addressing climate change and the climate legacy initiative as one thing the mayor and council are doing right. “We know that if we are going to meet our climate resiliency goals and combat climate change at scale we have to be willing to fund initiatives like the weatherization of homes, reduce pollution, promote clean energy options, create green jobs,” she said.
She is critical, however, about the city’s approach to unsheltered homelessness. “The fact of the matter is that spending thousands of police and staff hours to evict encampments and moving people to the next block or chasing unhoused people away is not a solution, it is not sustainable, and it is not going to make us safer or healthier as a community.
“Whoever the next mayor is needs to be willing to work with council members on having a multi-jurisdictional table to address homelessness with a short-term, midterm, and long-term plan,” she said. “Council members need to be open to creative ideas that are working well in other cities and garnering results, such as secure and safe outdoor spaces, safe parking, and rethinking navigation centers.”

Where they live
Thompson does not currently live in the ward, but lives on the Northside as the park board commissioner representing District 2.
To be elected, the law requires a city council member to live within the boundaries of the ward to which she is elected within 30 days of the election. Thompson, who grew up in the area of the current Ward 12, plans to move back this summer.
“I want to be plain about my living situation,” Thompson said. “I’m looking for a place between campuses of Minnehaha Academy, and I also might make an offer on a house close to Minnehaha Falls in the coming days.”
She grew up in three different places in the area, first near Brackett park, then near the Minnehaha Academy’s north campus, and, after moving when she was nine, in a house closer to 42nd St. and the south campus.
“My favorite thing is absolutely the Riverview Theater (sorry everything else) where I fell in love with movies as a kid,” said Thompson. “I also love Dogwood Coffee and Town Hall Lanes, and, if you remember, Mario’s Restaurant was the best.”
Chowdhury lives in the Hiawatha neighborhood. “I take great pride in being a Southsider. I have always loved living here, and I grew up not too far away from Sibley Park,” she said. “My favorite thing about my neighbsorhood is all the good that comes from living in a walkable and transit-oriented area.”

How they MAKE DECISIONS
A city council member is expected to make hundreds of decisions every month, some with significant and long-term consequences.
“My first thought is mathematical,” said Thompson when asked about her decision-making process. “That’s just how my brain is wired. Does this make logical sense? My next thought is children and single moms. That’s based on my lived experience and my experience as a teacher. How does it impact them? If it makes logical sense and is good for kids, I’m typically its biggest champion. If it is not logical but impacts kids, I’ll still support it 99% of the time. If it’s bad for kids, likely there is zero way I will get behind something.”
“As a council member, there are many decisions that come before me, the majority of the decisions are ones that have unanimous support,” said Chowdhury. “However, there are decisions that are challenging and where there isn’t clear consensus. When decisions like these come before me, my process is to be thoughtful, weigh the options, outcomes, unintended consequences, and engage with the neighbors I am elected to represent.
“I do my best to get the facts, check in with my colleagues to learn what they are hearing and what their position is,” she added, “and I remember at the end of the day everyday people of Ward 12 come first for me.”

To reach the candidates
Becka Thompson can be reached at Iwill@vote4becka.com, or www.vote4becka.com.
Aurin Chowdhury can be reached at Aurinforward12@gmail.com or www.aurinchowdhury.org.