The primary is over. Here is what November 3 still needs

Both 2026 filing windows are closed: here is who is on the November ballot

Minnesota ran two candidate filing windows in 2026, and both are closed. Federal, state, county, and the cities and school districts that hold a primary filed May 19 through June 2. Cities without a primary, school districts without a primary, towns with November elections, and hospital districts filed in the late period, Tuesday, July 14 through Tuesday, July 28. The Secretary of State’s counties calendar sets it at 112 to 98 days before the general election. Which window a jurisdiction used turned on one thing: whether it nominates by primary. It is not that state candidates file early and local candidates file late; the split is primary or no primary.

The consequence for print is simple. The field for November 3 is set. Every candidate who will be on a Minnesota ballot this year already is, and a good share of the late-window filers, first-time city council and school board candidates especially, still have nothing printed. We print things; we are not your lawyers, and election law changes. Confirm every date here with your local filing officer and the Minnesota Secretary of State before you build a plan on it.

If you filed in July, your election was always November 3, and September 18 is your first deadline

Here is the thing nobody tells a first-time candidate, and it is worth reading twice before you panic.

The late filing window exists because those jurisdictions do not hold a primary. That is the whole reason they file later. So if you filed an affidavit of candidacy in July, you were never on the August 11 primary ballot. Your race is the general election on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, and it has one meaningful date in front of it: absentee voting for the general opens Friday, September 18, 2026 (46 days out, under Minn. Stat. 203B.081). That is your real first deadline, because it is the day the first ballots in your race get filled out. Everything you want a voter to have seen before they mark a ballot needs to exist before September 18, not before November 3.

From the end of August that is under three weeks to September 18 and a little over nine weeks to November 3. Enough time to do this properly (brand, signs, literature, a mail plan, the whole sequence) if the decisions get made this week, and exactly enough time to lose if you spend the first three of them deciding on a logo. Our political campaigns page walks the full list of what a race actually needs printed.

For November, voting starts September 18, not November 3

If the primary taught campaigns one thing this year, it was that before election day is the wrong frame. Absentee voting for the primary opened June 26, ballots sat in voters’ hands for weeks, and by August 11 a meaningful share of the electorate had already voted. The general works the same way, on a bigger scale.

Absentee voting for the November 3 general opens Friday, September 18, 2026 (46 days out, per Minn. Stat. 203B.081). Minnesota’s separate in-person early voting option, new for 2026, opens 18 days out (which computes to Friday, October 16) and puts the ballot straight into the counter the way it does on Election Day. Confirm that one with your county; the Secretary of State’s published 2026 calendars predate the change, so do not take our word or a news story as the last word on it.

One more wrinkle that trips up voter-facing copy: the county auditor is always open at 46 days, but a 2026 change lets a municipality choose whether its own office administers voting starting at 46 days or at 18 days. So never print “vote early at city hall starting September 18” without checking that specific city.

Net effect: print aimed at November that lands in late October is reaching people who may have already voted. The first mail drop, the signs, and the literature all belong in front of voters before September 18.

What fits before September 18, and what needs the full runway

Be honest about the difference between fast and impossible. Three weeks is real runway for some pieces and none at all for others.

• Still very doable

  Signs. A run of coroplast election yard signs is the most predictable leg of this whole thing once artwork is approved. The campaign sign quantity calculator gets you to a count worth quoting.

• Still doable

  Literature you hand to people. Push cards, door hangers, and lit pieces for a walking program produce quickly and go to work the day they land. Our campaign literature guide covers what belongs on them.

• Tight, but not gone

  A targeted mail program timed to land before September 18. Mail has a real timeline: design, proof, data, production, postal transit. That chain gets computed backward from the in-home date, not forward from today. A first drop can still make it if the artwork is approved in the next few days; the second and third drops, aimed at mid- and late October, have room.

Do not guess at the mail one. Our campaign mail drop calculator works backward from the date you want pieces in mailboxes and tells you the artwork date it requires. Run it against September 18 before you spend a dollar. If the artwork date it returns is in the past, aim that first piece at the October 16 in-person early voting start instead, and let the later drops carry persuasion into the final week. The turnaround time estimator gives you the same reality check on everything else, and political direct mail covers how the whole program fits together.

The bottleneck is the disclaimer and the approval, not the press

Campaigns consistently misjudge which part of this eats the calendar. It is almost never the printing. It is the candidate who wants three color directions, the committee that has to vote on a tagline, the logo that exists only as a screenshot. And the disclaimer.

Minnesota generally requires campaign material to carry a disclaimer identifying who prepared and paid for it, under Minn. Stat. 211B.04. Yard signs are not exempt. The statute does carve out several things: small items where a disclaimer cannot conveniently be printed, like bumper stickers, buttons, and pens, and a broader exemption for people and groups who are not required to register or report under Minnesota's campaign finance chapters at all. Signs are not on that list, and whether the registration exemption reaches you is exactly the kind of question we cannot answer for you. Getting it wrong means a reprint, which is the one mistake this close to an election you genuinely cannot absorb.

Two things make this worse in 2026 than in past cycles. 211B.04 was substantially rewritten during the 2026 session and the new text has been in force since May, but several widely-used reference documents still show superseded wording, including the Revisor's own statute page. And separate disclaimer-size rules keyed to sign dimensions appear to apply only to signs printed on or after January 1, 2027, which means a great deal of confidently wrong advice is circulating right now.

We are not qualified to tell you which form applies to you, and this page is not legal advice. Confirm the current required text with the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, the Office of the Revisor of Statutes, or your own counsel, then send us the approved string rather than an approximation. Our campaign sign disclaimer guide lays out what we do and do not know.

Reading this in September? Buy the fast things and get the October drops right

The worst thing a late campaign does is panic-buy. It orders a scattered pile of everything, at the wrong quantities, with artwork nobody had time to look at properly, and it arrives after the people it was meant for have already voted.

The better move is boring. Order the pieces that still work on a short clock (signs and hand-delivered literature) at a count you can actually place, and let them do their job for the weeks that remain. Then take the mail budget, the brand work, and the pieces that need real lead time, and aim them at the dates that have not passed: September 18 for the first ballots, October 16 for in-person early voting, and the final week before November 3 for the last-minute deciders.

That is not a consolation prize. A campaign that spends September getting its identity, its disclaimer, and its mail plan right is in far better shape in late October than one that spent it reprinting signs. Our 2026 campaign sign ordering calendar maps the sign side of that in detail.

We design campaign material in Buffalo, MN and produce it with trusted print partners, for candidates and committees across the spectrum. We do not ask who you are running for. If you have a date on the calendar, tell us what your race looks like and we will work backward from it and tell you honestly what still fits.

Frequently asked questions

• When does candidate filing close in Minnesota for the 2026 election?

  Both 2026 windows have closed. Federal, state, county, and cities and school districts that hold a primary filed May 19 through June 2, 2026. Cities without a primary, school districts without a primary, towns with November elections, and hospital districts filed July 14 through July 28, 2026. The next filing periods belong to 2027 municipal and school elections. Confirm dates with your local filing officer and the Secretary of State.

• When was the 2026 Minnesota primary, and when is the general election?

  The state primary was held Tuesday, August 11, 2026, and the state general election is Tuesday, November 3, 2026. Minn. Stat. 204D.03 sets both. Absentee voting for the general opens Friday, September 18, and the 18-day in-person early voting period computes to October 16. Confirm current dates with the Secretary of State and your county.

• If I filed on July 28, was I on the August 11 primary ballot?

  No. The late filing period exists specifically for jurisdictions that do not hold a primary. That is why they file later. If you filed in the July 14 to 28 window, your election is the general election on November 3, 2026. Your first practical deadline is September 18, when absentee voting for the general opens. Verify with your clerk.

• Can I still get campaign signs printed before absentee voting opens September 18?

  Generally yes. A straightforward run of coroplast signs is the most predictable part of the process once artwork and the disclaimer are approved. Approval is what costs the time, not production. Order in the first week of September and signs can be staked before the first ballots go out. Ask us for a realistic date.

• Is it too late to send campaign mail before November 3?

  No, but the first drop is tight. Mail has to be designed, proofed, produced, and moved through the postal system, and that chain runs backward from your in-home date. Run our campaign mail drop calculator against September 18 for the first piece; if the artwork date it returns has passed, aim that piece at mid-October and let two later drops carry the message through the final week.