Sheriff Gordon Ramsay files for second term in St. Louis County
Gordon Ramsay has filed for a second term as St. Louis County sheriff, setting up a 2026 race over jail operations, rural coverage and public safety.
Gordon Ramsay has filed to seek a second term as St. Louis County sheriff, putting his first term in front of voters in a county where the sheriff’s office handles jail custody, emergency response and patrol functions across a vast rural landscape. St. Louis County, which describes itself as the largest county east of the Mississippi River, relies on the sheriff’s office for law enforcement and related public-safety work far beyond the county seat.
Ramsay was elected sheriff in November 2022 and sworn in on January 10, 2023 by Chief Judge Leslie Beiers. His current term expires on January 4, 2027, and Minnesota law sets the sheriff’s office at a four-year term. County campaign-finance records list a sheriff filing for Gordon Ramsay dated December 23, 2025.
The sheriff’s office says Ramsay oversees about 290 staff members spread across eight divisions: Sheriff, Boat and Water Safety, Homeland Security and Emergency Management, Rescue Squad, Law Enforcement Services, Emergency Communications, Radio Maintenance and Jail. That structure matters in St. Louis County, where public safety is not centered in one city but stretched across towns, highways, lakes and unincorporated areas that can be far from the nearest deputy or jail facility.
Ramsay’s county biography says he has more than 31 years in law enforcement. Before becoming sheriff, he spent 16 years as a police chief, including posts in Duluth and Wichita, Kansas. The county also says he was appointed to the Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement in 2020 and held leadership roles with the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Minnesota Police Chiefs Association and the Minnesota Sheriff’s Association.
His bid for another term now turns the sheriff’s race into a direct test of how St. Louis County wants to measure the office’s work since 2023: whether the jail has been managed effectively, whether staffing has been stable enough to cover a county of this size, whether emergency management and rescue operations have been ready when needed, and whether violent-crime and drug-enforcement pressures are being met in both the Iron Range and the county’s more remote communities. The next term would determine who controls those decisions as the county heads toward 2027.
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