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

Donald Trump
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

Trump Slammed After Saying He's 'Not Joking' About Running For A Third Term

Republican President Donald Trump was ridiculed for insisting he was "not joking" about running for a third presidential term, which would violate the Constitution under the 22nd Amendment, stating a President cannot be elected beyond a second term.

In an NBC interview Sunday morning, Trump maintained his allies were pushing for a third term for the Trump administration.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshot of Donald Trump
Fox News

Trump Ripped For Bonkers Answer After Being Asked To Define What A 'Woman' Is

President Donald Trump was called out after he was asked by a conservative reporter at the end of Women's History Month to give his definition of a "woman"—only to show that he doesn't even know his own talking points let alone those of the wider GOP.

This past Friday, Trump attended the swearing-in ceremony for interim U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, Alina Habba, where he also took questions.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshot of Karoline Leavitt
C-SPAN2

Karoline Leavitt Gives Mind-Boggling Update On Signal Group Chat Scandal—And Critics Are Furious

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was called out after she dismissed reporters' questions amid revelations that Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg was invited into a Signal chat with high-level Trump administration officials, particularly Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, discussing military strategy surrounding war strikes in Yemen.

Lawmakers from both parties have increased their calls demanding an investigation into the Signal scandal. The latest push came from Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, who on Monday sent a letter to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard calling for an independent probe.

Keep ReadingShow less
Kids in a classroom
Maskot/Getty Images

Tennessee Senate Passes Bill Requiring Schools To Teach Students To Get Married And Have Kids

The Republican-led Tennessee Senate has passed a bill that requires schools to teach children a "success sequence" that emphasizes the importance of getting married and having children.

If approved by the state House, the “Success Sequence Act” would require schools to teach students about the purported “positive personal and societal outcomes” of following a prescribed sequence of life events: earning a high school diploma or equivalent, entering the workforce or pursuing higher education, getting married, and then having children.

Keep ReadingShow less
Two people flirting
Photo by Jed Villejo on Unsplash

People Break Down Telltale Signs That Someone Thinks You're Attractive

Let's be honest: Some of us are pretty clueless when it comes to flirting.

Whether it's knowing how to flirt or suspecting when someone is flirting with us and acting on it, we fumble our way through the experience and might only occasionally find our way to a date or relationship.

Keep ReadingShow less