Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

Pregnant Minnesota Candidate Forced To Give Speech While In Active Labor, Sparking Backlash

Pregnant Minnesota Candidate Forced To Give Speech While In Active Labor, Sparking Backlash
Karrah Marie Cheruiyot/YouTube

A Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party candidate for Minnesota state Senate was forced to give remarks at the state's nominating convention while in active labor and many Minnesotans are outraged the convention was not postponed instead.

Erin Maye Quade, a former Minnesota state representative, was ready to go out Saturday and win the endorsement of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, the Minnesota moniker for their state's Democratic Party.


But then, early that morning, she went into labor.

And when it seemed as though officials were not willing to change the date of the convention, Quade soldiered on and gave her speech anyway while fighting through contractions, only to be forced to withdraw later to go to the hospital.

See her speech below.

youtu.be

Many are outraged Quade was put in such a position.

Quade's campaign manager Mitchell Walstad claims that their request for more time was met with "pushback," and so they assumed a request to change the dates would be denied.

He told HuffPost:

"[W]e didn’t feel as if there was any latitude to ask for any suspension of the endorsement, even though we would’ve preferred to do it at a different date."

He also described the process by which Quade was able to appear at all—by going into a designated room to breathe through her contractions, then re-join the nomination proceedings.

When it became clear that Quade would not be able to stay for the duration of the nomination process, Walstad says she requested that her opponent Justin Emmerich agree to suspend the rest of the nomination and move to a primary instead. They say he refused, sparking outrage among many of Quade's supporters.

But Emmerich has a different version of events. He says he told Quade he wanted to wait a bit longer to see how the voting results shaped up and would get back to her, but she suspended her campaign and left for the hospital before he could do so.

Minnesota DFL party officials shared Emmerich's version of events, adding that suspension of the nomination requires a formal request that Quade never initiated.

Walstad and many of Quade's supporters believe, however, that if it had been a different sort of medical emergency like a heart attack, the proceedings would have been halted immediately on principle with or without a formal request.

Emma McBride, a campaign surrogate and friend of Quade's wife, shared this sentiment.

She told HuffPost:

“I think that they would’ve stopped this convention for any other medical emergency, but instead they put a Black woman through immense pain and put her in front of the room during one of her most vulnerable moments in life ― in front of a room of 200 people."

In the end, Emmerich ran unopposed after Quade left for the hospital and, obviously, won.

On Twitter, many people found Quade's situation infuriating.






And many excoriated Emmerich for celebrating his win.



Quade is just the third Black woman in Minnesota's history to serve in its state house, and was the first openly LGBTQ candidate to win her party's endorsement when she ran for lieutenant governor in 2018. Had she won this year's race, she would have been the first Black woman in Minnesota's state Senate.

More from News/lgbtq

Kristi Noem
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Kristi Noem Ripped Over Her Lack Of Gun-Handling Skills While Cosplaying As ICE Agent

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was criticized after she had an ICE officer seemingly dodging her aim after she pointed a gun towards his head while filming a video.

In a 20-second video posted to X on Tuesday, Kristi Noem stands flanked by two Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, brandishing a gun. Wearing a vest marked "ICE," along with dark cargo pants and a cap, Noem addresses the camera while the two agents remain silent beside her—though some X users expressed concern for the safety of one of them.

Keep ReadingShow less
Aimee Lou Wood
Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic for HBO

'White Lotus' Star Reveals Heartbreaking Paranoia After Mike White Fought For Her To Be Cast

Warning: The article contains discussions relating to body dysmorphia and body image issues.

Fans of HBO's The White Lotus were saddened to hear season 3 star Aimee Lou Wood's comments about how she almost wasn't cast in the show because she thought she was too "ugly."

Keep ReadingShow less
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Kent Nishimura/Getty Images

AOC Calls Out Colleagues Over Suspicious Stock Market Activity Minutes Before Trump's Tariffs Pause

New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called out her own Congressional colleagues who might have participated in insider trading after it was reported that NASDAQ call volume spiked just minutes before President Donald Trump announced he'd pause his retaliatory tariffs.

Trump declared a full 90-day suspension of all the “reciprocal” tariffs that took effect at midnight—except for those on China—in a dramatic about-face from a president who had long championed his historically high tariff rates as permanent.

Keep ReadingShow less
Sterling K. Brown; Kelly Clarkson
@kellyclarksonshow/TikTok

Sterling K. Brown Gets Kelly Clarkson Choked Up With Emotional Reason He Stopped Going By His Middle Name

On his birthday, Sterling K. Brown guest-starred on the Kelly Clarkson Show, during which Clarkson inquired about the history of his name. When he was young, he went by his middle name, Kelby, only to later switch to Sterling, which made Clarkson curious.

She also shared a fun story about her son, Remington, who introduced himself during a red carpet event as "Remington Alexander" instead of as "Remy or Remington Blackstock."

Keep ReadingShow less
Megan Fox; Machine Gun Kelly
Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images

'The Onion' Just Dragged Machine Gun Kelly With A Brutal Headline—And Even He Got A Kick Out Of It

Hey, at least he has a sense of humor about his break-up with Megan Fox.

Musician Machine Gun Kelly couldn't help but laugh when beloved satirical news site The Onion took a jab at his less than parental image following the birth of his first child with ex Megan Fox.

Keep ReadingShow less