Minnesota candidates campaigning amid fear

As the nation comes to grips with the slaying of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, two candidates inthe Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Park are going door to door seeking to wina legislative seat left open by another political attack that killed a longtime state lawmaker and her husband.

- By MARK VANCLEAVE AND MarGeErY A. BECK

NATHANIEL MINOR Associated Press. GOP candidate Ruth Bittner speaks with a potential voter while knocking on doors in Brooklyn Park, Minn.

The troubling political violence is a clear concern along Brooklyn Park’s tree-lined streets, where voters will head to the polls Tuesday to fill a state House seat left vacant by the fatal home-invasion killing of their neighbor, Rep. Melissa Hortman. The Democrat was first elected in 2005 and served as Minnesota's Democratic House leader before her death in June.

Hortman, her husband and their dog were killed early on the morning of June 14 in their Brooklyn Park home in what investigators say was a politically motivat-edattack.

Vance Boelter, 57, faces federal and state murder charges in the Hortmans’ deaths, as well as attempted murder and other charges in the shooting of another Democratic Minnesota lawmaker, Sen. John Hoffman, and his wife, Yvette, who both survived an attack at their home the same day.

A neighborhood that is on edge

The Republican candidate seeking Hortman's seat, real estate agent Ruth Bittner, noticed early in her campaign that people in the neighborhood where Hortman was killed seemed afraid to open their doors.