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Marquita Stephens
Marquita Stephens (Democratic Party) ran for election to the Minnesota State Senate to represent District 53. She lost in the Democratic primary on August 11, 2020.
Stephens completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. Click here to read the survey answers.
Elections
2020
See also: Minnesota State Senate elections, 2020
General election
General election for Minnesota State Senate District 53
Incumbent Susan Kent defeated Mary Stephens in the general election for Minnesota State Senate District 53 on November 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Susan Kent (D)  | 54.1 | 29,544 |
 | Mary Stephens (R) | 45.8 | 25,030 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.1 | 55 | ||
| Total votes: 54,629 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for Minnesota State Senate District 53
Incumbent Susan Kent defeated Marquita Stephens in the Democratic primary for Minnesota State Senate District 53 on August 11, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Susan Kent | 66.3 | 6,318 |
 | Marquita Stephens | 33.7 | 3,214 | |
| Total votes: 9,532 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Republican primary election
Republican primary for Minnesota State Senate District 53
Mary Stephens advanced from the Republican primary for Minnesota State Senate District 53 on August 11, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Mary Stephens | 100.0 | 2,889 |
| Total votes: 2,889 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Campaign finance
Campaign themes
2020
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Marquita Stephens completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Stephens' responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I've spent my career in public service building families, building potential, and I'm a black mother myself. I felt him. I saw him. I am answering his call. George's call just wasn't to his mother, or to me, it was to all of us.
The tragedy of the police murder of George Floyd isn't the only crisis we face.
Minnesota ranks among the worst states in the nation for disparities in housing, poverty, incarceration, and high school graduation. Many of these disparities are racial, but there are also wide gaps between low-income whites and higher-income whites.
Shockingly, in 2017 Minnesota ranked dead last in pediatric dental care.
Each year, Minnesota high schools graduate more and more students unprepared for college.
Minnesota is home to major corporations and some of the world's best colleges. However, without major reform to public safety institutions as well as investment in social infrastructure, our current success rests on an unstable foundation where many people are left behind and thus the common future of all Minnesotans is at risk.
Despite the urgency of the times, the Minnesota state legislature has failed to step up. Our state legislature couldn't even pass meaningful legislation in the wake of the murder of George Floyd - that's a failure on both sides of the aisle.- The problem isn't just the Minneapolis Police, it's the violation of citizenship throughout the state - whether by police brutality and murder or the unjust removal Black children from their homes by state agencies
- Due to Covid-19, public education in Minnesota faces an unprecedented challenge for early childhood education, K-12, and higher education. Without a clear state-wide plan to overcome projected budgetary shortcomings, the most vulnerable of us - the children - are set to suffer hardships from which some may never recover.
- Guaranteed healthcare for all residents. The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed the shortcomings of our health infrastructure, the overburdening of our frontline healthcare workers, and the continuing lack of access to healthcare for too many Minnesotans.
I'm running for Minnesota State Senate to fulfill the democratic promise this nation made at its birth, that so many died to preserve, but too often goes unrealized for so many. I know I'm not running alone; we run together.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2020 Elections
External links
Footnotes
