Mayor Doug

Mayor Doug (born c. 2019), usually referred to simply as Doug, is an eastern grey squirrel who has served as mayor of Lesser Tumbleton, Minnesota, since January 3, 2023. He was elected in November 2022 as a write-in candidate after no person filed for the office, receiving 147 votes to 139 for Councilman Dale Ruud. He was re-elected without opposition in 2024 and again on November 3, 2026.

Mayor Doug
Official mayoral portrait, 2023
Species	Eastern grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis)
Sex	Male (presumed)
Born	c. spring 2019
Known for	Mayor of Lesser Tumbleton, Minnesota (2023–present)
Owner	None (wild)
Residence	Bur oak behind City Hall, Main Street, Lesser Tumbleton
Appearance	Grey with a pale belly and a V-shaped notch in the left ear
Weight	approx. 1.3 lb (590 g) (2025 estimate)

Doug is believed to be the first non-human animal to hold elected municipal office in Minnesota, although the state has no statutory record of the species of its officeholders. His mayoral functions are exercised under Resolution 2023-01, which delegates administrative duties to the city administrator, Pamela Sorensen, and provides for mayoral decisions to be recorded by means of the Acorn Protocol. His tenure has attracted national and international press coverage, a legal challenge, and continuing debate over whether the squirrel currently in office is the one originally elected.

Background

A squirrel matching Doug's description was first noted by City Hall staff in the autumn of 2020, when he began removing items from the porch of the building, including pencils, a stapler and, on one occasion, the key to the city's salt shed. His nest, or drey, is located about 30 feet up a bur oak that stands behind City Hall and is estimated to be 140 years old.

The name "Doug" was given to him in 2021 by children attending the summer reading programme at the Lesser Tumbleton library, who voted for it over "Nutsy" and "Mr. Fluff" by 11 votes to 8 and 6. The librarian who organized the vote, Ingrid Lothe, has said the children chose the name because "he looked like a Doug".

2022 election

Background to the campaign

The incumbent mayor, Arlen Bergquist, announced in April 2022 that he would not seek a fourth term, citing his age and "the general situation". The filing period closed on August 16, 2022, without any candidate having filed for mayor. Under Minnesota law, the office would be filled by the candidate receiving the most write-in votes.

Councilman Dale Ruud announced a write-in campaign on September 1. Two weeks later, Gary Thorsgaard, owner of the Lakeview Café, began distributing lawn signs reading "DOUG: He's Already Here", which Thorsgaard later said had been "a joke for about a week". By late October, 64 signs had been placed in the city, compared with 22 for Ruud. Supporters cited Doug's long residence near City Hall, his "visible work ethic" and what one resident described to the Acorn as "the absence of any opinions I disagree with".

Result

Lesser Tumbleton mayoral election, November 8, 2022

Candidate	Votes	%
Doug (write-in)	147	47.7
Dale Ruud (write-in)	139	45.1
Arlen Bergquist (write-in)	9	2.9
Other write-ins	13	4.2
Total	308	100.0

The canvassing board accepted ballots reading "Doug", "Doug the squirrel", "Squirrel (Doug)" and "the one behind City Hall" as votes for the same candidate. Three ballots reading "Doug Ruud" were rejected as ambiguous. Turnout was 83% of registered voters, the highest in the city's history.

Legal challenge

On November 28, 2022, Ruud filed an election contest in Otter Tail County District Court, arguing that a squirrel was not an "eligible voter" as required of municipal officeholders. The city responded that the residency and eligibility requirements had been "substantially complied with, given the candidate's continuous residence in the city's ward since 2020". The contest was dismissed on February 7, 2023, by Judge Harriet Vollmer, who held that it had not been served on the contestee within the statutory period. Her order noted that service on the contestee "presented practical difficulties the court does not underestimate", but that "the statute does not distinguish". The order concluded: "The court expresses no view on whether a squirrel may hold municipal office, and hopes not to be asked again."

Ruud did not appeal, and remains a member of the city council. He told the Acorn in 2024 that his relationship with the mayor was "professional".

Mayoralty

Acorn Protocol

Main article: Lesser Tumbleton, Minnesota § Government

At its first meeting of 2023 the council adopted Resolution 2023-01, which assigns the mayor's signing and presiding functions to the city administrator as acting chair, and establishes the Acorn Protocol for matters requiring a mayoral decision. Two acorns of similar size are placed in bowls labelled "Yes" and "No" on the porch railing of City Hall at 7 a.m.; the first acorn removed by the mayor determines the decision. If neither acorn is removed within 24 hours, or if another animal removes an acorn, the decision is recorded as an abstention.

Between January 2023 and September 2026, the protocol was invoked 61 times. According to records compiled by the Acorn, the mayor chose "Yes" 29 times and "No" 14 times, and abstained 18 times, including four abstentions attributed to blue jays. A 2024 analysis by the statistician Dr. Torvald Engebretsen of the Prairie Institute of Applied Statistics found a significant preference for the "Yes" bowl, which he attributed to its position nearer the oak tree rather than to "any policy disposition". The council subsequently resolved to alternate the bowls' positions daily.

Notable decisions

• 2023 budget (January 2023): approved ("Yes"), including a new line item of $900 for "mayoral provisions", principally sunflower seeds and corn.
• Oak Preservation Ordinance (May 2023): approved. The ordinance prohibits the removal of any oak tree over 60 years old within city limits without council consent. Critics noted that the mayor's residence was the principal beneficiary.
• Bird Feeder Regulation Ordinance (August 2023): abstention. The ordinance, which would have required feeders to be fitted with squirrel baffles, was subsequently withdrawn by its sponsor, Lorna Fiskum, then a private resident.
• Broadband franchise agreement (2024): rejected ("No"). The decision followed an incident in May 2024 in which the city's fibre-optic cable was gnawed through at the City Hall junction box, disconnecting the city for 31 hours; the mayor was not formally implicated.

Ceremonial role

Doug has attended, in the sense of being present on the City Hall oak, every Acorn Days festival since 2023. In 2023 he received a commemorative rubber duck from the council of Klein-Tümpelbach, Lesser Tumbleton's German sister village, an exchange described in rubber duck diplomacy literature as the first such gift to a non-human head of government. The duck is displayed in City Hall, the mayor having shown no interest in it. He was also present in a ceremonial capacity at the 2023 North American Open of competitive napping.

Identity and continuity

Because the eastern grey squirrel has a typical lifespan in the wild of a few years, questions about whether the current mayor is the squirrel elected in 2022 have been raised since 2023. City staff identify the mayor by a V-shaped notch in his left ear, which was documented in photographs from 2021. In 2024, Dr. Ruth Kalinowski, a wildlife biologist at Northern Plains State University, examined photographs supplied by the city and concluded that the notched squirrel of 2024 was "probably, though not certainly" the squirrel photographed in 2021.

The council adopted Resolution 2024-07 in October 2024, providing that the office of mayor shall be declared vacant if "the officeholder cannot be identified with reasonable confidence for a period of 60 consecutive days". The resolution has not been invoked. Councilman Ruud has questioned whether the ear notch is distinctive, noting in a council meeting that "half the squirrels on Main Street have something wrong with their ears".

Reception

Doug's election received coverage in national and international media, and the city reported receiving 1,900 letters addressed to the mayor in 2023, many enclosing nuts. The president of the International Association of Professional Yappers, Darlene Okafor-Pruitt, described him in 2023 as "a leader who lets others do the talking, which I admire in principle". A bill introduced in the Minnesota Legislature in 2023 to require that municipal officeholders be "natural persons" did not receive a committee hearing.

Political scientist Dr. Elspeth Rowan has written that the case "illustrates the residual flexibility of small-town democracy, and also the absence of anyone wanting to be mayor of Lesser Tumbleton". Locally, the mayor's approval rating in an informal 2025 poll by the Acorn was 71%, compared with 44% for the city council as a whole.

2026 re-election

A nominating petition for Doug was filed by Gary Thorsgaard in August 2026. A second petition, nominating a red squirrel resident near the grain elevator under the name "Pete", was rejected by the city clerk because 14 of its 20 signatures were found to be duplicates. Doug was the only candidate on the ballot for mayor, and was re-elected unopposed on November 3, 2026.

See also

• Lesser Tumbleton, Minnesota
• Rubber duck diplomacy
• The Pennsylvania Chicken Uprising