Tom Emmer: Not laughing on the inside.

​It truly is the great Minnesota get-together.

The state fair played host to an unlikely reunion this afternoon as failed 2010 Republican candidate for governor Tom Emmer came together with protester Nick Espinosa this afternoon.

Espinosa is the man behind the glitter-bombings and flashmobbings at Bachmann and Associates this year. Last summer, he famously doused Emmer with two thousand pennies at a public forum after Emmer took a stand against the minimum wage.

Espinosa tells City Pages he saw Emmer walking around and decided to ask him for a picture. Emmer seemed thrilled to be recognized and put his arm around the diminutive lefty. Things seemed all good until Espinosa offered him pennies.

That's when the man who nearly became Minnesota's governor gave Espinosa some pointed instructions.

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Mark Dayton will be the next governor of Minnesota.

​Be careful what you wish for, the old saying goes.

Mark Dayton took the oath of office as Minnesota's governor at noon, the first Democrat to hold that office in decades.

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We're done here.

​It's all over except for the inauguration.

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie has issued election certificates to Governor-elect Mark Dayton and his running mate, Yvonne Prettner Solon.

Here's what they look like:

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Tom Emmer says it's time to move on.

​Given the steady drip, drip, drip of his failed ballot challenges and dead-end legal maneuvers since Election Day, it almost seems anticlimactic that Republican Tom Emmer has finally concluded that his race for governor is lost.

A lot of GOP insiders, and more than a few members of the party rank and file, have already said they've moved on. Finally, Emmer has too. And Mark Dayton will be our next governor.

Update: Video from Emmer and Dayton after the jump.

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All Pawlenty has to do now is decide whether or not to run for president.

​A lot of Republicans were hoping against hope that the Dayton-Emmer recount process would eventually turn the tide in favor of their candidate.

But Gov. Tim Pawlenty said today that Tom Emmer "was realistic" about his chances of beating Mark Dayton when all the ballots were counted again by hand.

Could have fooled us, with all those cryptic charges of fraud, frivolous ballot challenges, and assertions about not getting rolled. But the race is over, and everyone is moving on.

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Mark Dayton will be the next governor of Minnesota.

​It's over. Republican candidate for governor Tom Emmer will concede the race to Democrat Mark Dayton in an official announcement at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow in his hometown of Delano.

Emmer decided to quit his recount battle against Dayton just hours after the Minnesota Supreme Court issued a written opinion that hammered the final nail in the coffin of his chances for a legal challenge.

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Another nail in the coffin.

​Tom Emmer now has what he wanted from the Minnesota Supreme Court: A written opinion that explains why the justices denied his petition that essentially accused some state elections officials of breaking the law.

The 18-page opinion, just issued, refutes Emmer's legal arguments up and down and moves Mark Dayton one step closer to the Governor's Mansion.

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Arranging deck chairs on the Titanic?

​Tom Emmer's Team Frivolous did the right thing Saturday, withdrawing almost 2,600 frivolous challenges to recounted ballots in Hennepin County.

On Sunday, the Great Withdrawal continued as they took similar action on the work of their overzealous troops in Renville and Dakota counties. And the State Canvassing Board is expected to spike even more frivolous Emmer challenges next week.

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Mark Dayton wins again, but the contest isn't over yet.

​Every county in the state has completed its recount in the governor's race, and the result is the same as the day after Election Day: Democrat Mark Dayton has an insurmountable lead over Republican Tom Emmer.

The Secretary of State's office reported on Friday night that, with 99.9 percent of the actual ballots counted, Dayton won 919,148 votes, or 43.29 percent of those cast. Emmer won 910,433, or 42.88 percent. That gives Dayton a margin of 8,715 votes.

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Mark Dayton's roughly 9,000-vote lead has not changed.

​Tom Emmer's still losing the recount in the governor's race, but he's not conceding anything to Mark Dayton.

Instead, with the recount nearing completion and the outcome still favoring Dayton by almost 9,000 votes, he demanded today the the Minnesota Supreme Court issue a written opinion as to why it rejected his petition challenging the method by which ballots are counted. Not that he's trying to delay anything.

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