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Donald Trump won more votes in Minnesota in 2020 than he did in 2016.
Still, it wasn’t enough to flip the state red, as former Vice President Joe Biden looked set to win Minnesota’s ten electoral votes with a seven point edge over Trump as of publication, with some votes yet to be counted. In 2016, Hillary Clinton carried Minnesota by just 1.5 points.
On Wednesday morning, Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon estimated turnout in the election could hit 78 percent — which would be three points higher than turnout in the last presidential go-around in 2016.
Biden and Trump both received more votes in every region of the state — Greater Minnesota, the Twin Cities and the Twin Cities suburbs — than their 2016 equivalents: in Trump’s case, himself, and in Biden’s, Clinton. But Biden’s victory was driven by earning far more votes than Clinton did in each of those places.
The suburbs propelled Biden to victory in Minnesota
As in 2016, the Democrat’s victory relied heavily on running up vote margins in the Twin Cities suburbs. (For the purposes of this piece, we define the suburbs as the seven-county metro region of Anoka, Dakota, Carver, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott and Washington minus Minneapolis and St. Paul.) As Greater Minnesota turns more solidly Republican and Minneapolis and St. Paul consistently turn out for Democrats, the Twin Cities suburbs, where 45 percent of votes for president in the state came from Tuesday night, represent the biggest pocket of voters up for grabs for either party.
In recent years, or so the story goes, President Donald Trump’s unpopularity in the Twin Cities suburbs has helped Democrats win statewide, from Hillary Clinton in 2016 to Tim Walz and Keith Ellison in 2018.
Tuesday night appeared to be no exception. Maps of election returns show Biden pushing further out into suburban precincts than Clinton was able to do in 2016.
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Not only was turnout higher in the suburbs than it was in 2016, Biden won more of the votes there than Clinton did.
In 2016, Clinton won 49 percent of suburban votes, compared to 57 percent of the suburban votes Biden has so far.
Biden didn’t only do better than Clinton in the suburbs, he did less poorly than Clinton in Greater Minnesota (defined here as the 80 counties outside the seven-county Twin Cities metro).
[image_credit]REUTERS/Mike Segar[/image_credit][image_caption]While both Joe Biden and Donald Trump received more votes in every region of the state than their 2016 equivalents (in Trump’s case, himself, and in Biden’s, Clinton), Biden’s victory was driven by earning far more votes in each of those places.[/image_caption]
Suburban vote share growing?
We won’t know for sure yet until all the votes are counted, but this may be the year that the Twin Cities suburbs usurp Greater Minnesota as a voting bloc in a Minnesota presidential election.
As their populations have grown, the ‘burbs have been on a slow climb in clout. In 2016, Greater Minnesota made up 44.1 percent of votes compared to 43.7 in the suburbs. This year, again with a few straggling precincts and whatever comes in in the next week still out, Greater Minnesota represents 42.9 percent of votes cast in the presidential race compared to 45.0 percent of votes in the suburbs.
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So far, Minneapolis and St. Paul together represent 12 percent of votes, consistent with their share in the past.
Of course, the increasingly large suburbs have been a boon for Democrats in recent elections but experts caution against believing that’s a long-term trend. Suburbs are notoriously swingy and it wasn’t long ago that Republicans were racking up more votes in the suburban Twin Cities than Democrats. Furthermore, as things stand, Republicans look to be winning back some of the state legislative seats they lost in the suburbs in recent years.
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}, { name: ‘Twin Cities suburbs’, data: [539795,592338,631294,817234]
}, { name: ‘Minneapolis and St. Paul’, data: [49223,54069,278811,322637] }] }));
MP.highcharts.makeChart(‘.chart-regionshare’, $.extend(true, {}, MP.highcharts.lineOptions, { xAxis: { categories: [‘1992′,’1996′,’2000′,’2004′,’2008′,’2012′,’2016’] }, yAxis: { title: { text: “%” } }, tooltip: { formatter: function(){ return ‘ ‘ + this.x + ‘‘ + ‘: ‘ + MP.formatters.number(this.y,1) + ‘% of votes’ + ” } }, series: [ { name: “Greater Minnesota”, data: [46.3,46.2,45.6,45.4,44.9,44.1,44.1] }, { name: “Twin Cities suburbs”, data: [40.3,41.2,42.5,42.6,43.0,43.8,43.7] }, { name: “Minneapolis and St. Paul”, data: [13.4, 12.6, 11.9, 12, 12.1, 12.2, 12.1] }] }));
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So 2016 was not an anomaly. Trump is a reflection of what our nation really is.
God help us all.
Yes, but also a reflection of what is missing in politics. There are many who long for moderate candidates who can get things done without the ego lambasting of others. Both parties fall into the the my way or the highway and those voices tend to crowd out the others. Add to it that most rely on sound bites. Take criminal justice reform; yes Trump signed a bill and did a few things, but only after being pushed by others, including Democrats and Dems drafted some of the legislation. Maybe it is time for a viable 3rd party.
Biden was a moderate candidate. I expect a some of my friends here will be criticizing the Democrats for nominating a moderate, but that’s what they did. Republicans spent a lot of money trying to convince people that Biden was some kind of socialist, but it just isn’t true.
“Moderate” is a term that has been so overused as to become meaningless.
The simplest explanation is that the electorate is fickle, not really caring too much about ideology. It’s what seems good to them at the moment. They’re like the cousin you follow on Facebook who will post a “#savethechildren” meme one day, and on the next, share a comment about the absurdity of conspiracy theories.
I wondered about your comment that Biden lost the 80 counties outside the metro because I was just viewing the state map on the Star Tribune election page which shows Biden winning, or at least leading, in nine counties outside the metro, some by a significant margin. The nine include St. Louis County and Olmsted County, where there a quite a few votes.
Hi Greg, I should have worded that more clearly: he lost the 80 counties outside the metro when you combine their votes (so that Greater Minnesota category in the story). You’re correct, he did not lose all of those counties individually. I’m updating to clarify.
Nice catch! President-elect Biden may have won 10 counties in Minnesota. Out of 87.
Do counties vote, or people? Pretty sure it’s the latter.
That’s great that you’re crunching all those numbers, Greta, but all they show is that we face a very serious crisis: that even more Minnesotans in 2020 thought that a manifest failure like Donald Trump deserved a second term. So much for the idea of some Repubs abandoning Trump for all his incompetence, crimes and misrule! Indeed, he’s out now “claiming” (with the royal “we”) states that haven’t finished counting the ballots-a delay which he actively worked to bring about in WI, MI, and PA, and encouraging the intimidation of election officials counting ballots! I wonder how many of his Minnesota supporters agree with those tactics?
I have to say I question whether any democracy and nation with these massively diverging views of reality and “success” can long prosper. The election of 2020 shows some pretty dark times ahead, even without thinking of the now surging and out of control Covid crisis. (9 ICU beds available in MN today…)
Maybe not everyone thinks that the former President was a “manifest failure”. Just a thought.
No, but moderation here won’t let you spell out “mind-blowingly monumental clusterf**k.”
I don’t know why “monumental” should be so objectionable.
Well, you’re right, Tom. A lot of people don’t think of him as a monumental failure. But what is deeply troubling for our future is that so many millions looked at all the nonsense and degradation of the last four years and said, “Yup. That’s my man.” I mean, if they want to cast a symbolic vote against the Washington establishment, why do it by voting for someone who has fanned the flames of discord and openly championed the breaking of laws?
I’m against much of the mess in D.C., too, but the orange clown is not the way to draw us together, to lead thoughtful discussions of our many differences, and propose a way forward that brings up together and starts to chip away at the massive walls we have built between each other. From this point, many people deepened the rift between the extremes.
I think having one candidate based in reality and hope, versus the other one who is based in denial of facts, should be enough to point to the only way forward for all of us. In a nation almost equally divided between embracing reality and chasing illusion, we are already in deep doodoo. A vote for trump helps nothing.