Were the Minnesota shootings targeting state lawmakers and their family members motivated by leftist political views of the suspect, Vance Luther Boelter? While many details remain unclear as of June16, 2025, available evidence doesn't support this theory. Here is what we know about Boelter's political affiliation.
A rumor about Boelter's left-leaning views appeared in a post (archived here) on X, published on June 15, 2025. It opened:
This is what happens
When Marxists don't get their way
This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot by Lead Stories)
The image in the post came from a law enforcement flyer (archived here) announcing a reward for information about Vance Luther Boelter, the man later arrested and charged (archived here) by the state authorities with two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of attempted second-degree murder. His arrest came after attacks on two Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses that, on June 14, 2025, left former State House Speaker Melissa Hortman, a Democrat, (archived here) and her husband Mark dead.
(A criminal complaint in a parallel federal investigation would later clarify that the image on X didn't show Boelter's face -- at the time, he was wearing a hyper-realistic plastic mask to conceal his identity.)
The entry on X implied that the suspect could have been positioned on the left of the center of the political spectrum and that the attack had something to do with the suspect's partisan views.
On June 16, 2025, Attorney Joe Thompson for the District of Minnesota said (archived here) that "these were targeted political assassinations the likes of which have never been seen in Minnesota" but did not elaborate on the suspect's ideology.
Minnesota is a state with open primaries (archived here), meaning that people don't have to declare their political affiliation to be able to vote in federal or local elections. Thus, Boelter's registration form reviewed by Lead Stories only proved that he was registered to vote in Minnesota, as of this writing.
A saved copy of the records unavailable live due to technical maintenance at the time of writing showed that Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (archived here) appointed Boelter as a "business member" of the Governor's Workforce Development Board in 2019. In 2016, Boelter had also been appointed as a "private sector representative' to a similar body, the Governor's Workforce Development Council by Waltz's predecessor, Gov. Mark Dayton (archived here).
On June 14, 2025, local law enforcement posted (archived here) an image of "NO KINGS" flyers said to have been found (archived here) in one of the vehicles used by the suspect, which was the name of the coordinated nationwide protest against policies of Republican Donald Trump, which took place that day. Yet, law enforcement would not tell Lead Stories what they believed the significance of the flyer was.
In the criminal complaint in the federal case against Boelter, FBI agent Terry Getsch says that the suspect's list of targets included "many Minnesota public officials, mostly or all Democrats."
A video from 2022 (archived here) appears to show Boelter being engaged in Christian service, which was consistent with the Wall Street Journal article (archived here) saying he acted as a pastor at a church in Africa.
David Carlson, his long-term friend and a person with whom the suspect shared one of the two properties associated with this case, told the Minnesota Star Tribune (archived here) that Boelton identified as a Christian and thought that abortion "was murder", even though they hadn't recently discussed the subject.
According to the AP (archived here), Boelter was a registered Republican in Oklahoma before moving to Minnesota in 2024.
