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Minnesota Republicans were confident that their campaign message would reverse recent trends toward the DFL in the vote-rich but swingy suburbs.
Gas prices and a fear of crime flowing out of the cities would be enough to overcome concerns that the June overturning of Roe v. Wade in a case known as Dobbs put abortion rights at risk.
“When you can’t afford to buy your kids soccer shoes, that becomes a top priority,” said Stillwater Sen. Karin Housley, who co-chaired the Senate GOP campaign committee. “The public is much more concerned about public safety and affording their lives.”
Of abortion, Housley said in September: “I think the Democrats were hoping it was going to be an issue that was going to stick.”
Turns out, it stuck. A confident GOP had to keep the champagne on ice Tuesday night as an expected sweep turned into a defeat. DFLers put abortion rights at the center of their campaign – both in their pledges to protect access and in their attacks on the GOP for threatening those rights if they controlled state government.
While Gov. Tim Walz was expected to win a second term, Republicans thought they would break a negative streak of not winning a statewide race since 2006. If Scott Jensen couldn’t win, certainly Jim Schultz could become attorney general or Ryan Wilson could become state auditor.
They got close: Schultz within 20,000 votes, Wilson within 9,000 votes. But they both ended up losing to incumbents Keith Ellison and Julie Blaha, respectively.
More surprisingly was the DFL holding the House majority it first won in 2018 and regaining the state Senate for the first time since 2016. How unusual is that? A president’s party historically loses seats in Congress and in statehouses at the next midterm.
In Minnesota, the DFL gained 19 seats in the House in 2006, two years after George W. Bush won a second term. At Barack Obama’s first midterm – after which the first-term president said his party had been given a “shellacking” – the GOP gained 25 seats in the state House. They gained a smaller 11-seat bump at Obama’s second midterm, and the DFL added 18 seats in 2018 two years after Donald Trump won the presidency.
Tuesday, the House stayed roughly the same with a few races close enough to require a recount. In the days following the election, both minority caucuses chose new leaders to replace those who oversaw the campaign.
The suburbs became the top voting bloc in the state in a governor’s race for the first time in 2018 – topping Greater Minnesota for total votes cast. While that lead narrowed to less than half a percentage point in this year’s governor’s race, it still remains that 44.5 % of the vote was in suburbs in the seven-county metro area outside of Minneapolis and St. Paul, 44.1 % in Greater Minnesota and 11.4 % in the two cities.
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And how did Jensen do in the suburbs? He lost first-ring suburbs like Edina, St. Louis Park, Bloomington, Richfield, Maple Grove. He lost Burnsville and Minnetonka, and Eagan and Eden Prairie and Maplewood and Savage. He lost Chanhassen and Anoka and – especially painfully for Jensen – Chaska, his hometown. (This table shows how every city in Minnesota voted in the governor’s race).
“The suburbs were where the election was going to be won or lost,” said Maureen Shaver, a lobbyist and campaign consultant with lots of experience in suburban politics. “Tim Walz knew that and Scott Jensen should have.”
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And abortion was the issue that resonated there. Because Roe had assured that abortion would not be decided at the state level, it wasn’t as important before. But 2022 was, “the first election where that’s not been the case.
“I absolutely believe that the Dobbs decision was the underpinning of the DFL success,” Shaver said. “Had that not happened, it probably would have been a very different election.” She said Dobbs left the anti-abortion movement “flat-footed.”
“Once the decision came down, they didn’t tell people what that was going to mean to them,” Shaver said. “They didn’t get behind it and say this is what we fought for for 50 years and why we think it’ll be better for Minnesotans to have a more-restrictive environment on abortion.”
Not talking about it seemed disingenuous to voters.
“You can’t underestimate the significance of that decision,” she said. “If a voter cared about reproductive rights and women’s health care, they only had one choice.”
The best illustration of how the decision and the Democrats’ use of it played with voters came in the 2nd Congressional District, Shaver said. Angie Craig won a third term in a district that was considered one of the primary pick-up opportunities for national Republicans. And she won it over Tyler Kistner by a larger majority than she did two years ago while Joe Biden was carrying the state easily.
Christopher Chapp is an associate professor of political science at St. Olaf College. As part of a class supported by the Institute for Freedom and Community, students went to 14 different voting locations in the district and conducted exit polling with voters. Nine of the 14 were in suburban areas including South St. Paul, Inver Grove Heights, Lakeville, Burnsville and Eagan.
Voters there were asked for the one issue that was the most important and of the 400 who gave one answer, inflation and abortion were by far the top choices. Inflation dominated among Kistner voters and abortion among Craig voters.
“Where my jaw dropped a little bit is how unimportant crime was,” Chapp said. Among Kistner voters, crime was cited by just 7.5%. “I was shocked with that.”
[image_caption]Christopher Chapp[/image_caption]
The St. Olaf exit poll also found something else that caught Chapp’s attention: While Biden had relatively low approval ratings – just 21% of Craig voters saying they “strongly approved” of his performance in office – Trump was even less thought of by the same group. Eighty-seven percent said they “strongly disapproved” of his time in office.
While a smaller number, concerns over voting rights/election integrity was cited by 13.7% of Craig voters as their top issue, “which to me was a shockingly large number, given that we had nine options. To get 13.7 among Craig supporters is a lot.
“In my mind, Trump was still on the ballot,” Chapp said.
Midterms often hurt the recently elected president because they are voters’ first chance to grade his performance. With Biden getting improving but still underwater approval ratings, he was expected to drag down fellow Democrats. But for the third-straight election, it was also a referendum on Trump. If he hadn’t been “on the ballot” before, he placed himself there on Oc. 25 when he endorsed Jensen and secretary of state nominee Kim Crockett.
Both had given endorsement to Trump’s claims of election fraud in 2020 – Jensen tacitly and Crockett more assertively. Among the four GOP statewide candidates, they collected the fewest votes.
Shaver agreed that Trump was on the ballot and that it hurt GOP candidates, calling Trump’s late endorsement of Jensen and Crockett “a complete misread of what they needed to do to get to 50 (percent) plus one.
“Donald Trump is not popular in the suburbs, and this election was going to be won or lost in the suburbs,” Shaver said. “He’s probably more unpopular than he even was when he was on the ballot. It was a complete misread of the voters in the suburbs.”
Danny Nadeau, a Republican from Rogers, was elected to an open House seat Tuesday with 53.4% of the vote. He said he, too, was surprised by the results of the election in the state and nationally.
“I bought into the idea that Republicans were going to do really well,” he said. A Jensen rally in Delano Monday night drew 600-700 people. “I’ve been involved in a number of statewide races, and I’ve never seen the turnout like that, so I was very enthusiastic about our chances.”
But, in addition to concerns about education and inflation and public safety, Nadeau said he heard voters concerned about how people get along.
“Unless we get along, unless people work and find that space where they can find some commonality, we know that nothing good is probably going to happen,” he said. “I think that played a real role with independents and soft Republicans and soft Democrats.”
He agreed that there is a strong dislike for Trump in the suburbs, especially among women.
“It was there and it was constant,” he said. And he heard from voters who said they were Republicans but couldn’t vote for their candidates because of what happened on Jan. 6. He said he also heard from some Democrats who didn’t agree with having no restrictions on abortion but didn’t think government should make those decisions.
“I think it was those things combined that played on the edges that really came together for Democrats this election,” Nadeau said. “I think it had a lot more to do with this feeling of what’s the most stable or least damaging. I think that’s where we fell out of favor with independent voters.”
Abortion, inflation beat out crime on national exit polls
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The same issues that resonated in the 2nd Congressional District and the entire state were similar to those that played a role nationally. On the national exit poll by Edison Research with 18,571 respondents, 29% said abortion should be legal in all cases and 30% said it should be legal in most cases. But of those who said abortion should always be legal, 11% identified as Republican. Of those who said it should be legal in most cases, 38% identified as Republican.
Exit polls are taken of voters as they are leaving voting places and are supplemented by contacting voters who have already voted early or submitted absentee ballots. The same poll asked respondents to say what issue was most important to their vote. Inflation was cited by 31% and abortion by 27%. Crime was cited by 11%.
There was a partisan difference, with Democrats far more likely to cite abortion and Republicans far more likely to say inflation. But crime wasn’t as top-of-mind as Republicans would have hoped.
The Wesleyan Media Project studies political advertising in federal campaigns. Among its reports are analyses of what issues are being raised by the campaigns and the independent expenditure committees that purchase the bulk of spots.
In Minnesota, of the 9,716 ad airings in October, 35% of the ads were about abortion, nearly all on behalf of Democratic candidates and a total buoyed by the $15 million spent by the Alliance for a Better Minnesota against Jensen, mostly slamming his abortion position.
“Minnesotan Republicans haven’t won statewide office since 2006,” tweeted ABM executive director Marissa Luna. “That’s also right around the time when Alliance for a Better Minnesota was founded.”
Said Shaver: “In Minnesota, you cannot underestimate the impact of the Alliance for a Better Minnesota – both financially and with the campaign infrastructure. The Minnesota GOP has nothing like it. (The Alliance) was able to define Scott Jensen early, and he never recovered.”
That top-of-ticket weakness hurt Schultz and Wilson and legislative candidates down ballot.
Wesleyan also found that 29% of TV ads in Minnesota last month were about public safety and 25% were about the economy and inflation. Nationally, nearly all of the inflation ads were to help Republicans, as were two-thirds of the spots touching on public safety. After abortion, the next highest subject area of ads trying to boost Democrats were about health care.
So Democrats, in the state and nationally, put their money into abortion and health care; Republicans banked on crime and inflation. But in Minnesota, an early indication that crime wasn’t resonating came with the first big drop of votes that came out of Hennepin County. Not only was Mary Moriarty winning in Minneapolis, she was winning in western suburbs where a tough-on-crime message from Martha Holton Dimick was supposed to be a winner.
Those results sent a message to both parties that something was going on. Another race in the same geography gave similar signals when the same batch of results showed DFL nominee Kelly Morrison of Deephaven with a large lead over the GOP challenger.
[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Peter Callaghan.[/image_credit][image_caption]Megan Hondl, the campaign director for the Senate DFL caucus (center), with Sen. Mary Kunesh (left) and incoming Senate Majority leader Kari Dziedzic.[/image_caption]
While some GOP candidates tried to deemphasize the issue of abortion, DFL candidates embraced it. The election results produced the first abortion rights trifecta – governor, House and Senate – in state history, say abortion rights organizations.
On a FOX News program Wednesday, former network sports reporter and Minnesota resident Michele Tafoya blamed Republican losses in her state and elsewhere on the issues of election denial and abortion.
“I tweeted out, ‘It’s abortion, stupid,’” said Tafoya, the co-chair of Kendall Qualls’s unsuccessful bid for the GOP endorsement for governor. “The reason is that so many young people were motivated and scared by the overturning.” On the same day, she wrote a substack piece urging Trump not to run again.
Greta Kaul contributed to this piece.
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Despite all the rhetoric about inflation, there’s nothing either party can do about it. The GOP brought it up constantly, which made it exceptionally glaring that they did not provide a solution to the problem.
If there are two main issues driving voters, and one issue is beyond the power of politicians to change whereas the other is very much in the realm of politics, the latter will have greater impact.
I want to see a breakdown of the mail-in ballots and how they broke, GOP versus DFL. Also, when the mail-in ballots were counted. I don’t believe issues (abortion, Trump, etc.) decided this election.
Believing that the Republicans could not have lost because of their stance on the issues is a special level of epistemic closure.
“Mail-in”votes are just no excuse absentee ballots, which have been part of elections for some time now. Many small (Red) counties have been all “mail in” for years. So there’s no particular reason to be concerned about this.
But nationwide numbers indicate that Dems are more likely to use early voting procedures, and Repubs are more likely to vote in-person on election day. There’s also no legitimate reason to be concerned about this, and especially no reason to be concerned about a (supposedly increased) “opportunity for fraud” fantasy you have advanced in the past.
That’s really just a smokescreen for objecting to urban turnout.
Did the ABM “define Jensen”? Or did they just get inform voters about what he had said in the past? “Defining Jensen” sounds so nefarious, and journalists should not choose sides by using such terms.
And Tafoya? Yeah, I’m no more interested in her political opinions than I am those of the jocks she used to cover. Jocks like Birk. Hey Michelle, how come I can’t reply to your Tweets?
I prefer to think that educated, logical, rational voters are drawn to intelligent candidates. The forced birth position in MN, or anywhere for that matter, is not an intelligent one. I don’t care if the candidate is a medical doctor or a Harvard grad; not intelligent.
And because there’s always somebody who has it worse, my sister in TX lives in fear that one or more of her naturally sex-curious teen grandsons will wind up a parent because re-elected Greg Abbott has placed himself in charge of libidos, genitals and birth rates in the Lone Star State. Not intelligent, not moral, not humane. Bravo to the suburbs, Gen Z, black women and intelligent independents from all walks of life who preserved democracy last week.
“my sister in TX lives in fear that one or more of her naturally sex-curious teen grandsons will wind up a parent because re-elected Greg Abbott has placed himself in charge of libidos, genitals and birth rates in the Lone Star State.” Perhaps your sister should worry about their total ignorance if they partake without some form of birth control, or protection from a multitude of STD’s.
The inane billboards that the Jensen/Birk campaign sprinkled along Twin Cities interstates were insulting. Fear mongering without solutions.
One of things that really bothered me about Jensen was how he sold his soul to the devil to get the Republican nomination. I lobbied at the Legislature and met with Senator Jenson a couple of times. He was one of the Republicans considered to be reasonable on issues like healthcare and some possible ways to curb gun violence. But once he decided to run for Governor he disavowed those positions and drank the MAGA flavored fruit punch.
I think a reasonable Republican could win statewide, but apparently a reasonable Republican cannot get endorsed by the party.
Again, don’t underestimate Moriarty’s big advantage as the endorsed candidate on the DFL ballot.
No doubt the abortion issue was key in the suburbs, but I wouldn’t discount concern about the democratic election process, especially as to the state-wide candidates.
I think what the voters might have told us that while crime and inflation were important issues, they just don’t have any confidence that Republicans are any better handling them in Democrats. Perhaps they feel both problems go deeper than party affiliation. In watching the commercials, I got the impression that Republicans thought they could win if they just said the words “crime” and “inflation” enough and put grainy pictures of Nancy Pelosi and Ilhan Omar on the screen.
I think Republicans can win the state, but not with the candidates they have. What’s more, in running the candidates we have seen, I am not convinced Republicans are all that interested in winning statewide office. In this polarized political environment, that tactics and strategies that lose the statewide offices, also ensure they win local offices easily, and there are a whole lot more legislators that need to be pleased by outcomes than governors.
And because the Supreme Court has made it clear that legislating the medical and sexual preferences of adults is completely fine, abortion is going to be on every ballot for a very long time. Add to it that “conservatism” is driven more by zealots now than it has been since the civil rights movement I can’t imagine their base, the people who determine their candidates during the primaries, is going to compromise on the topic.
Another observation. The largest city carried by Republicans was Lakeville. They did so by 65 votes, .19%. The next largest municipality was Andover, not Woodbury, not Blaine, not St. Cloud. The Republican economic message of self-sufficiency is being sold to out state areas that are the most dependent on government spending while they fearmonger about “urban crime” (black people) to scare communities who proudly claim they never go to the cities. The same people who claim that Minneapolis was burned to the ground based solely on Fox or OANs fantasy propaganda.
Their entire message is based on easily disproven lies. The trouble is that nearly have of the electorate is so easily or willfully duped.
And this is why the public safety message didn’t work in the suburbs, where the abortion message did resonate. The GOP was pushing a crime message oriented around MSP, not highlighting any way that it wasn’t safe any longer in Eden Prairie or Woodbury. (probably because they couldn’t bend the numbers into enough of a pretzel to make it work, but also because they instinctively think everyone in the suburbs and greater MN hates MSP, so running against it “works”) The threat of Dobbs was real to suburban voters, especially women.
Inflation certainly is a real impact, and it’s hitting suburban voters in a real way…but as Housley’s comment indicates: it’s not breaking the suburban voter. (never been anyone more out of touch than Housley, who lives a life of wealth and privilege and has absolutely no understanding of financial struggle or hardship. She’s literally the worst economic messenger the GOP has ever had in MN, but the top of the ticket certainly didn’t help: millionaire doctor and millionaire ex-football player) Having to go budget/used on soccer shoes is not a threat in the same way as major unemployment would be. This is like the idiot financial magazine taking seriously the person who claimed a $350K annual salary and were “living paycheck to paycheck”.
I used to live in Northwest Hennepin county and do not consider Maple Grove an first-ring suburb, but agree voters there in recent years have been trending blue like the inner ring suburbs. And the GOP in next door in Rogers( the Representative there won less with less than 55% of the vote) are rightfully concerned that the voters there will likely follow suit in future elections.
The GOP needs to do more than identify problems. Anyone can point fingers. They need to propose solutions that might actually work.
Pretty straightforward:
City cores are an unchanging blue base almost impossible to change
Out state will almost always do the exact opposite of city cores because that are different from them in almost every way and they blame them for any and all troubles they encounter
Leaving the suburbs to decide the winners. And most unfortunately for the Rs is a suburban demographic that skews upward in income and education and as long as the Rs put forward candidates that make smart, successful people shaking their heads the Ds will most often win
Dean Phillips as Exhibit A of the kind of candidate who will dominate the suburbs
Edward;
Your view is bleak if I read it right: Its all geographical (tribalism at its most basic), and NOT based on policy.
The GOP is even worse at real policy proscriptions than the DFL is at pointing out their policy benefits, and victories.
‘“When you can’t afford to buy your kids soccer shoes, that becomes a top priority,” said Stillwater Sen. Karin Housley…’
How brilliantly, shallowly perceptive. Peak middle age, white, female first world problems. Very. Very. Stereotypically suburban. So identity politics. The problem is that it’s a lot harder to afford soccer shoes when a woman has no choice over whether she has no children or a child every year. And, not surprisingly, the influx of young voters who have more existential concerns than whether they’ll ever be able to afford soccer shoes might affect things, too.
Thanks for the analysis, Peter.
Request: might you or someone else prepare a map of Minnesota, showing election results for counties by population size, not geographic size?
In other words, Hennepin County would be the largest county on the map.
Given that people vote–not counties–I think this might give a clearer graphic representation of the results. Thanks!
Several counties had fewer than 2,000 votes for the office of governor.
I’ve been an election judge in St Paul precincts that have had a nearly a thousand voters.
Most men I know would like to go to the high school football game and say, “Oh the quarterback, well that’s my son.” Reality however is sometimes different.
If, you support the Supreme Court’s decision regarding the overturning of abortion and voted supporting the candidates who were the same, consider the following:
Last Friday eve I was watching the Gophers game on TV, and on came an extended commercial regarding children who were born with birth defects. My wife and I, as our background was and is in healthcare and saw situations like this almost daily, give to Shriner’s and St. Jude’s. (The former deals with orthopedic birth defect concerns, the later with childhood cancers.)
I wondered how many that would vote Pro-Life (as they refer to themselves) would willingly vote themselves tax increases needed for the healthcare costs that will be a lifelong accompaniment for these fetuses that will be forced to birth. Those born with birth defects almost invariably are at higher risk for cancer risks. Immune systems are affected, in addition to higher-than-normal heart conditions and other lifelong concerns.
Even if not fully pro-life, these births that are now being “forced” in places like Texas WILL affect us all. Sometimes high-risk births need to be in enhanced birthing rooms which are almost like surgical suites. The health system that employed me had a whole station of high-risk birth suites which appeared otherwise as surgical suites at the hospital I worked at in my health care career.
Who did and will pay for this, ALL of us.
Does no one think that at the time the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade that insurance companies were not revaluating the health care costs in association with this decision? Rural area (that are typically pro-life ) will be harder hit than urban areas simply due to smaller pools of populations that can absorb these costs.
I had an employee, “T” who with his wife, chose to adopt and raise children with alcohol fetal syndrome. (A mother who drank any alcohol at the 24-27th day after conception is the most likely cause of AFS. Think about that, less than a month. Or in other words, before most women would even know they are pregnant.) T’s adopted children would need some form of accommodation, and T would recount to me going before the school board each year, threatening to take legal action, and then have the board take special exemption to grant the funds needed. He and his wife knew these board members and the whole thing was just a formality to have the board fund the accommodations that was the child’s right under the law.
The town he and his wife lived in is a county just into the rural area north of the cities. Now imagine these same small school systems across the US having to accommodation for these fetuses with birth defects that will be forced to birth.
You can argue the morality of aborting fetuses with birth defects or argue when life begins; what you cannot argue with is that there will be increased societal cost – all along the spectrum.
From hospitals spending money they already claim they do not have, to insurance companies raising costs, to the school systems, to housing built for their needs for them in later life.
If you voted for pro-life candidates based on your conservative religious beliefs, then you already know that “words without deeds are death” and will gladly pay for the increased taxes.
If you are an agnostic conservative, well I’d wager you will be paying for these increased costs kicking and screaming about taxes – as you always have.
That is what your party has been using as a wedge issue for years. After packing the Supreme Court, which you also supported, you won. Now get ready for the profound monetary costs this entails.
However, I believe, and my wife agrees, many women already considered the above when voting, and that is why they voted as they did, rural or urban.
The democrats ran for freedom (reproductive rights) and democracy (trusted elections).
The republicans ran against inflation (national issue) and crime (every state had increased crime). Also many GOP candidates denied elections are safe and accurate.
Crime and inflation are issues in flux. There is always going to be crime and inflation, it’s a matter of degree and you can’t eliminate either one.
St. Paul and Mpls both have new police chiefs. Hennepin County is has a new sheriff and county to tackle crime. These are both indicators of addressing and reducing crime in the metro area.
Could campaign spending have been a factor. DFL spent more than three times the amount of money than the GOP, and it paid off. No pun intended.
It’s an interesting question, but does that figure include all PAC spending in MN as well? Jensen and Schultz certainly didn’t lack for ad time on TV. It appears Crockett got outspent, but 2022 didn’t turn out to be a very fertile field for Trumpite election denialists, considering they couldn’t win in either AZ or NV!
A factor that is never examined in political ad spending is the truthfulness of the campaign. Generally speaking, Repubs and their PACs blanket the target markets with exaggerated falsehoods and misrepresentations, while Dem ads are largely accurate. And then there is spending for turnout as well.
This cycle in MN also featured a lot of money spent on insulting people’s intelligence, such as Jensen/Birks’ ads claiming that a vote for them would somehow curb inflation, and that Minnesota’s Nero Tim Walz “did nothing” while Rome burned.
So I wonder if the “quality” of the advertising also shouldn’t be considered as part of the spending equation.
The Strib recently reported the spending disparities between the parties and yes, it did include outside money.
“while Dem ads are largely accurate. ”
Cites please. That is a BIG statement having just watched a full election season of ads.
As seen here at Minnpost: “National Republican Party PACs have spent more than $12 million running attack ads against Craig – putting an additional $270,000 into the effort in the home stretch of the campaign and national Democrats have spent nearly that much attacking Kistner.” – I had heard that the Craig-Kistner race was one of the most expensive in the country?
Well, that certainly isn’t the 3 to 1 ratio that Tom A claimed for the “DFL over the GOP”, whatever races that was supposed to cover.
The whole problem with comparing the orgy of political spending by “party” is whether the comparison is apples to oranges. The Walz/Jensen contest was heavily supported by plenty of money on both sides. Same with Ellison/Schultz.
Tom,
If you really believe spending affects voting disproportionately, then work to reverse Citizens United and restore the Fairness Doctrine in media.
The upside regardless of party would be less campaign commercial in October and November, something we can all agree on.
I don’t believe that “spending affects voting disproportionately” I believe that the relationship is very proportional. And we are free to spend as much as we want on elections, which is good.
Might it be that if the Dems had more money to spend, it is due to Dems having more popular ideas?
I recall seeing pieces on how GOP fundraising was falling short; partly due to some large donors pulling back from MAGA candidates, and partly because Trump vacuums up so many small donations, which he’s largely held onto or spent on legal fees.
In conclusion: is spending a factor in winning votes, or is spending a leading indicator of who the people support?
I have long argued that the problem Republicans have is that they campaign against cities, and on their animosity towards them. Watching the few Jensen commercials I did, I got a vision of Minneapolis as hellscape where police stations are constantly in flame. It’s as if Scott Jensen had never attended a football game, let alone a concert at Orchestra Hall. Residents of the Twin Cities know we have our problems, but we don’t necessarily see the solution to be locking more of us up.
Well, he was less radical and saner than the average GOPer. Unfortunately, he was a serious candidate despite being a nut-job.
In the one legislative campaign by a Republican in a trending liberal exurb I got to watch up close, the candidate ran as what I would describe as an outstate campaign. Her views were somewhat veiled during the campaign but ever since she lost the election by a lot, she has been raging on the internet to the effect that she was defeated because the voters of her district love abortion, and crime and because they don’t mind of their dollar is worth less. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to her as it hasn’t to much of the media that voters are concerned about those issues, they just don’t think the Republican Party is the best choice to handle them.
Republicans in office always leave a trail of disaster behind them. Debt, pandemic, woman being dehumanized, guns for everyone, climate denial, pollution, etc. Name me one guy who did not leave a mess for the Democratic party to clean up. Its always debt and something else. Probably because they do not believe in government. Reality is we are a Big country and Big things are required to make it work.
Democrats won because of…
#1 – Big Money! I thought the moralistic DFL was against “Big Money in politics.” It turns out they love the big money.
#2 – Biden bought the youth vote. You already know how he did that. Did Biden lie?
#3 – Collusion of the DFL with the media. I thought the MPLS insurrection, Unilateral Tim refusing to debate, and DFL inspired crime wave would be enough to counteract the Trickle-down media campaigning for Walz – but evidently not.
#4 – The DFL have been turned into the party of “hunter-gathers” of the vote.
#5 – Abortion – The media showed no interested in having the DFL define “my body, my choice” and the limits on abortion established by Roe. Apparently the DFL want no restrictions on abortion, or they love limits on abortion established by 7 men in black robes. So much for democracy.
other reasons to follow….
Looking forward to more! But hopefully the ones to follow will be somewhat more coherent.
And you have to remember that many people here do not tune into the Rightwing Noise Machine, so code words and oblique references to one Dem “outrage” or another are not adequate.
Thanks for tuning in and listening.
Always a pleasure. But here’s a couple points to ponder:
1. If “conservatives” loved the restrictions on abortion that Roe permitted states to impose, why did they work tirelessly for 50 years to abolish the decision? Lib’ruls weren’t the ones complaining about having this constitutional right.
2. Similarly, you are aware that the current regime of almost total non-regulation of campaign spending is the product of the “conservative” movement, aren’t you? It was the Repub Supreme Court that ruled 5-4 that corporations could spend unlimited sums for “speech” (i.e. lies) about candidates in 2010. Dems would love to alter this absurd regime, but it’s been seen as a huge asset to the cause by “conservatives” and their plutocrats. Maybe that’s wrong? Just a thought…
You don’t suppose that Democrats won because voters preferred them on policy grounds, do you? That they didn’t want to vote for a candidate from a party whose de facto leader is a repellent excuse for a human being? Or for a candidate from a party that offers no real solution to problems besides cutting taxes? Or a party that wants to take away a right that Americans have come to regard as fundamental, with the possibility of taking away even more?
Maybe voters saw the Republican Party for what it is, and decided to reject it. Did that possibility ever occur to you?
“Conservatism” cannot fail, it can only be failed! Or defeated unfairly!
“The media showed no interested in having the DFL define “my body, my choice” and the limits on abortion established by Roe.”
It’s not the job of the media to make the parties do things.
“Apparently the DFL want no restrictions on abortion, or they love limits on abortion established by 7 men in black robes. “I
Maybe it is just that the DFL doesn’t think they should be the ones who impose restrictions on abortion. As a DFLer myself, I have no interest in imposing my views on others in this matter. If others feel they have some sort of special mission in life to make this most personal and intimate decision for others, I invite them to step forward and share why they have this special status with the rest of us.
I’m guessing Biden “bought” the youth vote by passing the most substantial investment in clean energy in the history of the country. Climate change is a top issue for Gen Z. Cheap gasoline is a top issue for boomers. That pretty much sums up the generational divide.
I think now is a good time to simply observe that one of our two major political Parties is and has been been cultivating hostility, ignorance, and immorality for decades. Sooner or later voters were bound recognize that fact, the only question was/is if they’d recognize it before or after they lost the right to vote.
The entire Republican agenda is based on fundamental dishonesty’s and manufactured grievance, and on some level they know it, which is why it’s genetically immoral. Fascists are not known for their honesty, morality, or integrity. The impeachment of Bill Clinton, neutralizing of Obama, and attempt to veto-proof their way around Dayton cemented the belief that no election the lose is a legitimate election. It’s no surprise that in a party full of sociopaths a sociopath finally rose to power and sent a mob down to the capital to overturn an election. The launch of voter suppression initiatives has simply been an intermediary step towards election denial, it’s part and parcel of an attack on our democracy and constitution. Republicans long ago abandoned the notion of participating in democracy in favor if capturing power… permanently.
Fortunately for us, Republicans have been cultivating so much ignorance and immorality as to separate themselves from fundamental realities. They’ve always had a tendency to delude themselves into believing they had a majority of some kind (even when recognizing they have to keep the majority from voting). So they double down on cruelty, ignorance, and toxic intolerance whenever they get a chance… they actually believe THIS is patriotism and decent Christian behavior. This toxic and manufactured grievance works for them in some local races, and in States where they manage to suppress enough votes, but at the end of the day the numbers just aren’t there.
Unfortunately the creeping realization of their own minority status tends to freak them out and drive them further into the arms of extremist and Fascism. They live in a country with a liberal constitution that protects minorities from majority oppression, but they’re constantly attacking minorities and trying to dismantle those protections. This agenda collides with their own drift into minority status and result in temper tantrum of privilege and entitlement. Whatever.
Our biggest danger is that the Democratic machine STILL may not recognize the true threat here. Democrats seem to be so dedicated to their delusional comfort zone of bipartisanship that they continue to normalize this drift into Fascism and leave multiple crises that fuel discontent on the table. Even when Democrats win elections they end up promoting more polarization by legitimizing extremism as some kind of “centrism”.
At the end of day the outcome will be decided by Democrats who either embrace the unifying and empowering principles of liberalism, or continue to marginalize them as “populist” blunders and threats to the status quo.
The maga revolution is sputtering to a stop. Well, well.
No one can say they were not warned….
We cannot post images however on Google look up “how all revolutions end…david horsey” and click on the SFGate choice. Surprising how topical this 2009 cartoon is. Same old, same old.
Jense made at least 4 comments that he would not retract, and any one was enough to disqualify him as an elementary Principal, let alone state Governor. That he got 45% is an alarming measure of the stupidification of the USA and increasingly, MN
“Unilateral Tim refusing to debate, and DFL inspired crime wave would be enough to counteract the Trickle-down media campaigning for Walz – but evidently not.”
I thought the decision by Walz to not engage in extensive debate and to forego certain pretty standard debate forums, I am thinking here of the State Fair and the Almanac show, was interesting. Of course, contrary to the remarkably self important claims of TPT, no candidate has an obligation to debate. Still, campaigns across the board have become increasingly isolated from voters, conducting their campaigns mostly through shadowy third parties. This is a bad, even anti democratic trend, one that the media irresponsibly allows.
Republicans should have asked their republican oil oligarch sponsors like the Koch family to stop price gouging and profiteering on refined fuels. All forms of transportation of goods and services rely on gasoline, diesel, jet and marine. All inflated transportation costs drive up prices. There is no shortage of crude in America , only price fixing based on opec and no competition. 2. White supremacy, antisemitism, xenophobia, homophobia don’t sell in the Metro and other dense population centers. 3. Antivax and forced birth don’t sell in population centers.
I have often been informed by well-meaning Republicans that the city I live in and of which I am rather proud is a cesspool of some sort. I am told that my neighbors and I routinely loot Target stores and burn down police stations. From them, I gather, the only thing that stands between me and horrible death or at least a carjacking is a violent police force all of whose members voted for Trump. And then they ask me for my vote.
My city is not without its problems. But I moved here and live here for what I regard are good reasons, reasons which I stand by today. There are problems, things could get better. I am eager to listen to anyone who has any positive suggestions. I admit I hear way too few of them from leaders of my own political party. But the “common sense” solutions I hear from the other party, which amount basically to locking most of us are without political appeal, to say the least.