Doug Chapin

Doug Chapin is an election-policy expert and attorney running as the Democratic nominee against incumbent Tom Emmer. His career has included election-law practice, work as elections counsel for Senate Democrats, founding electionline.org, leading the Pew Charitable Trusts' elections team, and teaching at the University of Minnesota. According to his Ballotpedia survey, his campaign messages are an economy, healthcare and government that work for everyone.[1]

Doug Chapin holds a bachelor's degree in Politics and Russian Studies from Princeton University, a Master's in Public Administration from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center.[1] He has practiced as an attorney in private practice specializing in election and ethics law, and served as elections counsel to the Democrats on the U.S. Senate Rules Committee.[1] In 2001 he founded electionline.org, which he describes as a nonpartisan source for election policy news and information.[1]

Chapin spent over a decade leading The Pew Charitable Trusts' elections team, where, according to his survey response, he worked on military and overseas voting reform and on upgrades to state voter registration systems.[1] He then worked for ten years at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs, where he founded the first online undergraduate and graduate certificate program in Election Administration.[1] He describes himself as a nationally recognized expert with almost forty years of experience in election policy and administration and as a frequent speaker and commentator on election matters; he lives in Hanover, Minnesota.[1]

Researched from the cited sources on 2026-10-21.