Here’s how the attacks in Minnesota unfolded early on Saturday.

Officials said the gunman killed Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and wounded State Senator John A. Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, in separate attacks at the lawmakers’ suburban homes. That man also fired at police officers responding to one of the homes.

“This was an act of targeted political violence,” Gov. Tim Walz said. “Peaceful discourse is the foundation of our democracy. We don’t settle our differences with violence or at gunpoint.”

The attacks shook political leaders from both parties, and many condemned the killing, which took place on a day of national protests of President Trump’s policies, including his deployment of the military in Los Angeles. The president was expected to attend a military parade celebrating the Army on Saturday night.

In Minnesota, Chief Mark Bruley of the Brooklyn Park Police said a gunman’s vehicle contained a manifesto and a target list with names of individuals, including the two lawmakers who were shot. Lexi Byler, a spokeswoman for U.S. Senator Tina Smith, a Minnesota Democrat, said Ms. Smith was on the shooter’s target list. The list also included abortion providers in the state, Ms. Byler said.

Investigators from state, local and federal departments flooded the region as they looked for the gunman.

The Minnesota State Patrol urged people not to attend political protests on Saturday “out of an abundance of caution.” Still, scores of people gathered outside the State Capitol in St. Paul, many carrying American flags or holding signs that read, “No Kings.”

Ms. Hortman, a lawyer by training and a legislator for about 20 years, served as the speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives for a six-year period ending earlier this year. She helped Democrats pass several key policies on abortion rights, marijuana legalization, medical leave and other issues in 2023 and 2024, when her party briefly held full control of the state government.

Mr. Hoffman, a fourth-term state senator from Champlin, another Minneapolis suburb, chairs the Senate’s Human Services Committee and has said he strives for “collaboration across the aisle.” His home address was published on his bio page on the Senate’s website.

Both houses of the Minnesota Legislature are closely divided. Before Ms. Hortman’s death, the House had been evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats have a one-person majority in the Senate.

Here’s what else to know:

• Wave of political violence: The shootings in Minnesota were the latest in a series of attacks on political figures that has shaken U.S. politics. In the last year, gunmen and arsonists have targeted politicians in both parties, from state-level officials to a major-party presidential candidate.

• Condemnations from across the political spectrum: The attacks alarmed political leaders from both parties. Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, said, “It was an attack on everything we stand for as a democracy.” President Trump, who was the target of two attempted assassinations last year, said he had “been briefed on the terrible shooting that took place in Minnesota,” adding that “such horrific violence will not be tolerated.”

• The suspect’s background: Mr. Boelter served at one point on a state board with one of his victims, and he is listed as the director of security patrols on the website of a Minnesota-based private security group. “We drive the same make and model of vehicles that many police departments use in the U.S.,” the firm’s website says.

Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Ernesto Londoño, Glenn Thrush and Jonathan Wolfe contributed reporting.

An assailant impersonating a police officer shot the couple inside their home in Brooklyn Park, a suburb of Minneapolis. That gunman also wounded State Senator John A. Huffman and his wife, Yvette, in a separate shooting on Saturday. Gov. Tim Walz called the shootings a “politically motivated attack.”

As the husband of one of the most powerful figures in a narrowly divided state, Mr. Hortman was well-known among friends for his sense of humor and interests that included billiards, baseball and mountain biking.

A native of Raleigh, N.C., Mr. Hortman graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, according to his Facebook and LinkedIn profiles, which also say that he obtained an M.B.A. from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. Mr. Hortman had been working as a program manager at nVent Electric, a global electrical manufacturing company, when he died.

“You couldn’t have had a more enthusiastic campaign spouse,” said Julie Blaha, the state auditor of Minnesota and a close friend of the Hortman family. “Not only was he an absolute rock for Melissa, he would do anything he needed to do.”

Ms. Blaha said she saw the Hortmans on Friday evening during a Democratic Party fund-raiser. Mr. Hortman often accompanied his wife on the campaign trail and had a competitive drive that made him an asset. He would often try to outdo her competition, said Ms. Blaha, pointing to the slightly larger yard signs he ordered to outdo his wife’s challengers’ signs.

Ross Bennett, a close friend who lived in the Hortmans’ neighborhood, recalled playing poker and pool with Mr. Hortman, whom he said he has known for over a decade. On a recent Saturday afternoon, Mr. Hortman called him up to offer his help assembling a new outdoor grill.

“Just out of the blue, he came over and did that,” Mr. Bennett said. “He had a lot of ingenuity.”

The Hortmans leave behind two adult children, a son and daughter.

Ms. Hortman and her husband, Mark, were killed by a gunman who also shot and wounded Senator John A. Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, in separate attacks at their homes on Saturday morning.

Among the safeguards that Ms. Hortman helped put in place were laws to keep guns out of the hands of people in crisis and to require stronger background checks for more gun purchases.

“Minnesota is a state with strong gun laws because of the leadership of Governor Walz as well as former Speaker Melissa Hortman,” said Emma Brown, the executive director of Giffords, a gun control advocacy group founded by former Representative Gabrielle Giffords, also a victim of gun violence.

Ms. Hortman “was critical to getting those bills moving and growing their support within the Legislature,” Ms. Brown said.

Ms. Giffords was the target of an assassination attempt in 2011 that left her seriously injured, and she has been an outspoken voice against gun violence in the years since. She and Ms. Hortman worked closely to get the gun control legislation passed in Minnesota, Ms. Brown said.

On Saturday, Ms. Giffords described Ms. Hortman in a social media post as “a true public servant who dedicated her life building a better, safer Minnesota.” She also shared a photograph of the two women clasping hands.

Everytown for Gun Safety, another gun control advocacy group, ranks Minnesota’s gun safety laws as the 14th strongest in the nation, partly because of the 2023 legislative package.

John Feinblatt, the group’s president, described Ms. Hortman’s legacy as “one of fearless courage, stronger communities and lifesaving progress” in a statement on Saturday.

Among the changes included in the 2023 bill was the implementation a “red-flag law” that aimed to prevent people in crisis — at risk of harming themselves or others — from possessing guns. Under the law, family members and law enforcement officials can ask courts to issue protective orders barring a person from buying firearms and taking away any that they already own. The measure went into effect at the start of 2024.

Another measure tightened background-check requirements for gun owners in the state. Under that law, people who obtain guns in private transactions must pass a background check, though hunting rifles and transfers between close family members are exempted. Federal law requires major gun dealers to run background checks, and an older Minnesota law mandates that smaller sellers do the same.

Minnesota has also prohibited people convicted of certain violent crimes, including domestic violence, gang violence, stalking and fourth-degree burglary, from possessing guns for three years after their conviction. The state requires people to apply for a permit to carry a gun in public.

Last year, a federal appeals court blocked the state from raising the age requirement for carrying handguns in public to 21 from 18.

While the motive for the shootings was still unknown, officials shared some information about the events surrounding the attacks, like the quick thinking of a police sergeant that led officers to a scene where they engaged in a shootout with an assailant.

Here’s how the attack unfolded early on Saturday:

At around 2 a.m., officers from the Champlin Police Department responded to a report of a shooting at a home in Champlin, a city in the Minneapolis suburbs. There they found State Senator John A. Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, injured with gunshot wounds. Emergency responders provided first aid on the scene and the two were rushed to the hospital, where they underwent surgeries. They survived the attack and remained under medical care on Saturday.

Officers from Brooklyn Park, Minn., another nearby suburb that is about 10 miles away, assisted in the emergency response to the senator’s home, and a sergeant from that department became concerned after discovering that one of the victims was a politician.

“In hearing that, that very intuitive sergeant asked our officers to go check on Melissa Hortman’s home, the representative that lives in our community,” said Chief Mark Bruley of the Brooklyn Park Police Department.

Two Brooklyn Park officers drove to Ms. Hortman’s home at around 3:30 a.m., and when they pulled up at her street they were met with a strange sight: A police vehicle, or what appeared to be one, was already there, parked in the driveway with its emergency lights on.

As the officers approached, a person who looked like a police officer — dressed in a blue shirt and pants, donning what looked like a protective vest, carrying a Taser and wearing a badge — was at the door and walking out of the house.

When confronted by the officers, the person immediately opened fire. The police fired back and the person “retreated into Melissa’s home,” Chief Bruley said. It wasn’t immediately clear whether anyone had been shot in the confrontation.

Officers moved to the entrance of the house and found her husband, Mark Hortman, on the ground, who “clearly had been struck by gunfire,” Chief Bruley said. They took a few steps inside the home, dragged Mr. Hortman out and tried to offer first aid. He was pronounced dead shortly after.

More officers were called to the scene and they surrounded the house. A SWAT team arrived and sent a drone into the house, which helped them find the body of Ms. Hortman inside.

The person who confronted them escaped on foot, officers said, and officials began a “large scale” manhunt on Saturday. Chief Bruley said that the shooter’s vehicle contained a manifesto and a target list with names of people including the two lawmakers who were shot.

Officers said that they had “people of interest” who they were looking for, and that they had detained and questioned several people, but no one was in custody by early Saturday afternoon.

Organizers of the protests said that they were canceling all of the planned events in Minnesota after a recommendation to do so from Gov. Tim Walz and other officials.

Several thousand people had gathered outside of the State Capitol in St. Paul by early Saturday afternoon, about 25 miles from the shootings.

Governor Walz said that people should “not attend any political rallies” in the state until the suspect was taken into custody.

The police said that the suspect had a list of targets and that both of the state lawmakers who were shot were on the list.

The gunman impersonated a police officer, the authorities said, and killed State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, at their home before going to the home of State Senator John A. Hoffman and shooting him and his wife, Yvette. The Hoffmans are being treated at a hospital.

Bernard Mokam and Ernesto Londoño contributed reporting.

State Senator John A. Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were also shot multiple times in an earlier attack by the same assailant. Mr. Hoffman and his wife remained alive on Saturday morning. A search is underway for the gunman, who officials said was impersonating a police officer when he carried out his attacks.

Both state lawmakers who were shot served critical roles in the Minnesota Legislature as members of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which functions as the state’s Democratic Party. Ms. Hortman served as speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives for a six-year period that ended this year, and she led her party’s push to retain power during the chaotic start to the session. Mr. Hoffman, a fourth-term state senator, chairs the Senate Human Services Committee.

Before the shooting, Democrats and Republicans each held 67 seats in the lower chamber. Gov. Tim Walz could call a special election to fill Ms. Hortman’s position. Democrats hold a one-seat majority in the Senate.

After last November’s election, Democrats and Republicans were tied for control of the lower chamber. But when a judge determined that one of the newly elected Democrats had not met the residency requirements to run for his seat, Republicans won a narrow majority and sought to capitalize on it.

Minnesota Republicans used their temporary narrow majority to push several contentious bills, including one that would bar transgender girls from competing in girls’ sports and another that would limit the governor’s emergency powers. Those bills failed to pass but inflamed partisan tensions.

That majority was short-lived because a Democrat won a special election for the newly vacant seat in March. Ms. Hortman had said in January that her members intended to stay away from the capital, holding off any business until Democrats regained the seat.

House Democrats refused to show up in the State Capitol on opening day, but Republicans unilaterally continued business, choosing Representative Lisa Demuth as their House leader. House Democrats called the move outrageous and filed a lawsuit, asking the Minnesota Supreme Court to bar Republicans from conducting business.

The chaotic start to the session underscored the challenges that Mr. Walz, a Democrat, faced on his return to Minnesota after he spent part of last year campaigning to be vice president.

Without full control of the Legislature — which they had held the previous two years — Democrats faced significant challenges in passing their priorities. The Minnesota Senate was also closely divided.

Lawmakers failed to pass a balanced budget when the session ended in May, leading Mr. Walz to call a special session.

Lawmakers passed a $66 billion budget after a daylong special session, averting a partial government shutdown that would have begun in July.

The shootings come amid a wave of political violence that in the last year has included gunmen and arsonists targeting politicians in both parties, from state-level officials to a major-party presidential candidate.

Most notably, last July, a gunman shot at Donald J. Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., grazing his right ear and killing a spectator. Two others were critically injured. Just over two months later, Secret Service agents traded fire with a man they called a second would-be assassin at one of Mr. Trump’s golf courses in Florida.

Research into the prevalence of political violence in the United States is mixed. After the assassination attempts against Mr. Trump last year, researchers found that Americans’ support for partisan violence had dropped. And by some metrics, instances of political violence involving extremists have declined in recent years.

But some studies have found that as the influence of extremist groups like militias has declined, people unconnected to such organizations have become more emboldened to carry out attacks, fueled by online engagement and social media.

“Ideas that were once confined to fringe groups now appear in the mainstream media,” Rachel Kleinfeld, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote in an academic journal several months after the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“White-supremacist ideas, militia fashion and conspiracy theories spread via gaming websites, YouTube channels, and blogs,” she continued, “while a slippery language of memes, slang and jokes blurs the line between posturing and provoking violence.”

Some surveys have found an uptick in support for political violence this year, and even a small number of people can have an outsize impact. Certainly, individual cases of high-profile violence have contributed to the feeling that partisan politics are more volatile than ever.

This year, a man was charged with setting fire to the residence of Gov. Josh Shapiro, Democrat of Pennsylvania; another man gunned down a pair of workers at the Israeli Embassy in Washington; and the Republican Party headquarters in New Mexico and a Tesla dealership near Albuquerque were firebombed. The latter attacks came as rancor toward Elon Musk’s slashing of the federal government prompted a wave of arson and vandalism against Tesla dealerships.

Just days ago, Daniel Hernandez Jr., a former Arizona legislator running for an open seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, reported that someone had shot at a staff member’s car outside Mr. Hernandez’s home in Tucson, which is also his campaign office. In 2011, he was an intern for Representative Gabby Giffords. When Ms. Giffords was shot in the head at a political event, Mr. Hernandez helped stanch the bleeding.

On Saturday, Mr. Hernandez posted a video message on social media, at times growing emotional as he urged people to work to temper political vitriol and end gun violence. In an interview, he said he worried that political campaigns had become too personal, with politicians potentially contributing to the violence by focusing more on their opponents than on policy.

“We’re at this very sad state in our politics where the rhetoric keeps getting worse and keeps getting more negative,” Mr. Hernandez said. “This is one of the sad realities, that my sister and I have had to have conversations about temporarily relocating because we don’t feel safe where we live.”

The attacks have occurred against a backdrop of mounting threats against judges and lawmakers. In recent years, attackers have targeted former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband; a mayoral candidate in Louisville, Ky.; and Republican congressmen practicing for the annual Congressional Baseball Game.

Congressional candidates’ spending on personal security has skyrocketed in recent years in the face of death threats, particularly against those Republicans who blamed Mr. Trump for the Jan. 6 attack.

She played a key role in passing a trove of bills during the 2023 session, when Democrats held a slim majority in the Legislature, including legislation that expanded abortion rights, legalized recreational marijuana and required employers to offer paid family and medical leave.

This year, under Ms. Hortman’s leadership, Democrats in the House boycotted the early weeks of the legislative session amid a fight for control of the chamber. Voters last year left Democrats and Republicans with an equal number of seats in the House, but challenges to two of the elections won by Democrats created a period of uncertainty around which party would control the chamber.

When those challenges were settled, Ms. Hortman agreed to let the top Republican in the House, Representative Lisa Demuth, serve as speaker.

Colleagues have long praised Ms. Hortman’s work ethic, negotiation skills and pragmatism.

Jerry Gale, Ms. Hortman’s campaign manager, said in an interview that she was a tireless campaigner who was passionate about recruiting fellow Democrats to run for office.

“She had a vision of what she wanted the state to be like, and she knew it was going to take a lot of work,” Mr. Gale said.

As the political rhetoric in the state grew more acrimonious in recent years, Mr. Gale said, Ms. Hortman worried about her safety.

“I think it did cross her mind at times on the campaign trail,” he said. Her own style was not combative, however. On the campaign trail and in the Capitol, Ms. Hortman kept her remarks short, to the point and civil, he said.

Ms. Hortman was married with two children, according to her state legislative biography. Her husband, Mark, was also shot and killed on Saturday.

Sen. John A. Hoffman has served in the Legislature since 2013. Before being elected, he served as a member of the Anoka-Hennepin School Board for several years.

Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota said the Hoffmans had both undergone surgery. “We are cautiously optimistic that they will survive this assassination attempt,” he said.

Mr. Hoffman, 60, was born in Casper, Wyo., and formerly made a living as a marketing and public relations professional. He and his wife, Yvette, have a daughter. They live in Champlin, a suburb north of Minneapolis. His home address was published on his biographical page on the Senate’s website.

Mr. Hoffman chairs the Senate’s Human Services Committee. He is a fourth-term senator, and won his most recent election by 10 percentage points.

“A hallmark of my approach is collaboration across the aisle,” Mr. Hoffman wrote in a letter to constituents ahead of last year’s legislative session. “I firmly believe that the path to progress for our state involves considering input from all perspectives, regardless of which party holds the majority.”

On his campaign website, Mr. Hoffman said he was particularly proud of his efforts to make it easier for people with disabilities to work. He also described himself as a conscientious steward of taxpayer dollars.