Authorities had said earlier that they had found a car, hat and other items belonging to the suspected shooter, Vance Luther Boelter, 57, in a rural area southwest of the city of Minneapolis, but had not found him yet.

Melissa Hortman (right), a former assembly speaker, and her husband Mark were shot dead on the weekend in what has been described as a politically motivated assassination. Source: AP / AP

Boelter fled on foot early on Saturday when officers confronted him at Hortman’s home.

Hoffman was undergoing surgery after being hit with nine bullets and “is closer every hour to being out of the woods,” Yvette said in a text message posted to social media by US senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat.

“There clearly was some through line with abortion, because of the groups that were on the list. So that was one of his motivations,” Klobuchar said on NBC’s Meet the Press.