What is a senate district?
Minnesota is divided into 67 senate districts. Each one elects a single state senator to the Minnesota Senate. Every senate district is also divided into two state house districts, each represented by a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives. This means your senate district is home to one senator and two representatives at the state level.
What does your state senator do?
Your state senator serves a four-year term in the Minnesota Senate, one of the Legislature's two chambers. The Senate has 67 members, each representing a district of roughly 80,000 Minnesotans.
Senators sit on committees that review and shape legislation covering everything from education funding and housing policy to healthcare access and workers' rights. They vote on the state budget, propose and debate bills, and the Senate alone confirms certain gubernatorial appointments, including cabinet positions and judges.
Because senate districts are larger than house districts, your senator is typically focused on a broader coalition of communities. But the district is still small enough that constituent contact matters.
What does your state representative do?
Your state representative serves a two-year term in the Minnesota House of Representatives, the larger of the Legislature's two chambers. The House has 134 members, each representing a district of roughly 40,000 Minnesotans, about half the size of a senate district.
Like senators, representatives sit on committees, propose and debate bills, and vote on the state budget. Every bill that becomes Minnesota law has to pass both chambers, so the House and Senate are equal partners in the legislative process, even if they have separate committee structures and leadership.
Because house districts are smaller, your state representative is often the most accessible elected official above the local level. They are more likely to be your neighbor, to show up at community events, and to have bandwidth for constituent contact.
How are senate district borders set?
Every ten years, after the U.S. Census, Minnesota redraws its legislative maps to account for population changes. That process is called redistricting, and determines which communities get grouped together, which get split apart, and how political power gets distributed across the state.
How those lines get drawn has real consequences for representation. A district that connects communities with shared interests looks different from one that separates them, and the difference can shape election outcomes for the following decade. We'll get deeper into how redistricting works later in this series. .
How to find your senate district
The Minnesota Secretary of State's office has a polling place finder at mnvotes.gov. Enter your address and it will return your polling place, your precinct number, and your legislative district — including your senate district and your two house districts.
Once you know your district number, you can look up your current senator and representatives at the Minnesota Legislature's website and see exactly who is carrying your community's voice to St. Paul.
Learn about our neighboring senate districts:
