MINNEAPOLIS — Were it not for the gentle suburban curve to the street, one could probably see Mark and Melissa Hortman’s house from Xp Lee’s Brooklyn Park home. Lee, a Democrat and former city council member, said he would often chat with the couple when they walked their dog in the neighborhood.

Those talks wouldn’t turn to politics, Lee said. But last year, Hortman did want to talk shop with Lee: He was coming off City Council and she wondered if he was interested in other local races — perhaps mayor, or county commissioner.

“She just wanted to catch up and see what my plans were,” Lee said.

Now, just months after the Hortmans were killed in their own home in an assassination that shocked the country, Lee is in the awkward position of being on the precipice of moving his political career forward — and into the seat occupied by Hortman for more than two decades.

Lee (whose first name is pronounced like the letters X-P, short for Xiongpao) and his Republican opponent, Ruth Bittner, are in the final weeks of a campaign that shouldn’t be happening right now. But it is, and the two candidates are carefully making their case even as the shadow of the assassination looms.

“Everyone knows it’s there,” Lee said.

The candidates, however, said not every voter in Hortman’s district has made the connection between Hortman’s death and the special election happening now, in September of an odd year, so they often have to explain it themselves. A Minnesota Star Tribune reporter tagged along with Lee and Bittner on a recent evening while they separately knocked on doors in the district.

“At first it was very, very sad,” Bittner said. “And I would say now that I feel like people have kind of accepted it more. And so we’re able to realize that somebody’s got to take the seat.”

The race for House District 34B, which includes parts of Brooklyn Park and Champlin in Hennepin County, and part of Coon Rapids in Anoka County, will be decided in a special election on Sept. 16.

Lee, the DFL-endorsed candidate, beat out two other Democrats in a primary last month. Bittner, a real estate agent, was the only Republican to file to run.

“No one would ever wish that upon anyone,” said Frank Buchholz, a Republican voter and retiree, of Hortman’s assassination. “But you know, it’s created an opening.”

Buchholz, who bemoaned the DFL’s recent dominance in state politics and is considering leaving Minnesota, was supportive of Bittner but not hopeful she’d be successful. After losing in her first few legislative races, Hortman came to dominate them; she won her last four with more than 60% of the vote.

Bittner called her race “winnable.” She declined to say whether she voted for President Donald Trump and instead emphasized a desire to crack down on fraud that’s plagued Medicaid-funded programs in the state. She also told voters she wants to rein in spending, cut taxes and increase funding for police.

Chuck Klinefelter nodded along as Bittner described her to-do list. Another frustrated Republican voter, he pinned some of the blame for Minnesota’s leftward lurch on Hortman.

“It’s a shame we lost our representative the way we did; I’d rather have voted her out,” he said, adding, “God bless her soul.”

Because of the campaign’s compressed timeline, Bittner and Lee are focusing their efforts on turnout and not persuasion. Bittner used a list to target likely Republican homes and Lee did the same with Democrats.

The two candidates knocked on doors the day after a shooter killed two school children and injured more than a dozen others at Annunciation Catholic Church and School in south Minneapolis last week. Many of the left-leaning voters Lee spoke with said they wanted the kind of gun control measures, including a ban on assault-style weapons, pushed by Democrats after the Annunciation shooting.

“Our constitution calls for people to bear arms, so bear an arm,” said Barb Dixon, a public school teacher. “But you don’t need a whole mess of guns and assault rifles.”

Bittner, the Republican, said she’d be “open to the conversation” about guns and otherwise said she wanted to study the issue. Lee, who said he owns a shotgun for self-defense, said he supported more limits on long guns and other gun control measures.

“It’s normal now,” Lee said of mass shootings. “But we got to try to walk it back.”

Judith Roberts, who lives just a few houses away from the Hortmans, said she hoped Lee, if elected, would follow in Hortman’s footsteps and be a strong leader on liberal causes while also working across the aisle when he can.

“Everybody in the neighborhood loves her — loved her,” Roberts said. “She did so much. She cared so much. And that’s what I like to see.”

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