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Minnesota has gotten a lot of attention from President Donald Trump’s campaign of late: Last month Trump himself visited Mankato for a rally. Soon after, Vice President Mike Pence made a stop in Duluth. The president’s son, Donald Trump, Jr., visited Duluth on Wednesday, and Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, is visiting Minneapolis Thursday.
Those efforts might look misplaced: Trump is behind in the polls in Minnesota, and the state’s voters hold the record of voting for Democrats for president the most years running, going all the way back to Jimmy Carter in 1976.
Then again, they might not. Every four years, the question of whether Minnesota’s long Democratic voting streak will finally be broken gets raised anew. But this year, declarations of Minnesota’s swing state status seem more frequent, citing Trump’s near-win (he was 1.5 percentage points behind Hillary Clinton), in 2016, as well as the amount of energy and resources the president’s campaign is spending in Minnesota.
Could this be the year a Republican presidential candidate finally wins Minnesota?
A history of close races
“Yes, Minnesota is a swing state, a battleground state, a purple state, in that it’s a close state,” said Eric Ostermeier, a research fellow at the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota and the author of the Smart Politics Blog.
While Minnesota has remained in the blue column since 1976, many of the races since then have been close: the 2016 race, where Clinton won by a slim 1.5 percentage points wasn’t even the closest of them; that’d be 1984, when 0.2 percentage points separated native-son Walter Mondale and Ronald Reagan (giving Mondale his only state victory in the Electoral College. He also carried Washington, D.C.).
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The question, Ostermeier said, is whether Minnesota is a state that consistently goes for one party — even if by a narrow margin — or if it’s a state that could actually flip to the other party.
The argument for Trump
Of flipping Minnesota, Nathan Gonzales, the editor and publisher of Inside Elections, a nonpartisan election analysis website, had this to say: “[Trump] might be able to.” Minnesota should be within reach for him based on the 2016 election result.
Polls taken around this time in 2016 put Clinton and Trump at similar levels of support to where Biden and Trump are at now. That race turned out to be very close.
The amount of time and energy Trump and his surrogates are spending in Minnesota suggests they see potential dividends in the state. Trump has said he believed he would have flipped Minnesota in 2016 if he had visited the state one more time before the election.
And they’re not only spending time in Minnesota, they’re spending money: Through August, the Trump campaign had spent $2.5 million on ads in Minnesota, while the Biden campaign had spent $790,000, according to Kantar Media figures compiled by CNN.
Preya Samsundar, a Republican National Committee spokesperson, said people who think the near upset in 2016 was a fluke are mistaken.
According to Samsundar, many Midwestern states have moved from supporting Democrats to Republicans over recent decades, and she sees evidence that Minnesota is on that trajectory in the shift in voter’s party preferences in places like Minnesota’s Seventh and Eighth congressional districts.
“We’re seeing the tides turning. There’s a mass exodus of Democrats. There has been for a long time,” she said.
There are opportunities to pick up votes in those areas, as residents become increasingly disenchanted with Democrats’ policies, Samsundar said, but also in suburban areas.
“We are leaving no stone unturned. We are going after every vote in every county across the state,” she said.
The case against Trump winning Minnesota
Minnesota polls, by-and-large, slightly favor Biden. In polls of the state from August and September Biden’s lead averaged 5.6 percentage points.
The most recently released poll, conducted online between Sept. 4 and Sept. 7 and released Wednesday by KSTP and SurveyUSA (which has an A pollster rating from FiveThirtyEight), had Biden up 9 percentage points among likely voters with a margin of error of +/- 5.2 percentage points.
Biden led Trump by 21 percentage points in the Twin Cities region and by 4 points in Southern Minnesota, while Trump led Biden by 19 points in Western Minnesota and 24 percentage points in Northeastern Minnesota.
Getting away from the numbers a bit, Ostermeier said it would surprise him if a state that elected Attorney General Keith Ellison by 3.9 percentage points in a statewide election in 2018 would not back Biden, who is likely to appeal to a broader electorate, just two years later.
Ellison ran 8 points behind Gov. Tim Walz, at the top of the ticket, and against Doug Wardlow, but still won by a larger margin than Hillary Clinton.
“To me there would have to be a pretty significant change in the electorate,” he said. “It’s hard for me to believe that in the same state, two years later, you’re going to find an electorate that is 4 points more to the right, or more conservative than the electorate that voted Keith Ellison into office. Granted not at the top of the ticket, but people were paying attention.”
[image_caption]A flyer sent to voters in September by the Republican Party of Minnesota promoting President Donald Trump.[/image_caption]
In House races, the evidence doesn’t back up a neck-and-neck statewide race, either, Gonzales said: The national investment isn’t there in seats like CD2.
Four years ago, in 2016, CD2 elected talk radio firebrand Lewis. This year, Tyler Kistner, the Republican challenger to DFL Rep. Angie Craig, is a good candidate for the district, but he got in late, Gonzales said.
“I don’t think he’s going to really have the wind at his back,” Gonzales said, adding that in CD2, Trump is more likely to be a liability this time around than an asset.
“If the president is not winning the Second District, the Second District is the kind of district the president needs to win if he needs to win statewide,” Gonzales said.
He said polls suggest Trump may be running behind where he was in CD7 in 2016, a year with Clinton, a historically unpopular Democratic candidate, at the top of the ticket.
“Trump won by 30 points in 2016. According to what I’ve seen, Trump’s going to win it, but it’s going to be by less than 30,” Gonzales said, and asked where Trump could be expected to pick up votes if he’s losing them in the Seventh District.
How much will Minnesota matter?
For all the interest in Minnesota this year, it may be something of an academic exercise.
FiveThirtyEight forecasts Minnesota is the fourth most likely state to be the deciding factor — the tipping point – in putting one candidate or the other over the 270 electoral college votes needed to win the race. The odds of that happening? A relatively small 7 percent.
That’s far behind Pennsylvania (30 percent), Florida (15 percent) and Wisconsin (8 percent).
Trump’s best shot at winning the presidency again this year is to repeat his path to victory in 2016, Gonzales predicted. But he’s not doing all that well in polls in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, so he has to make up for it somewhere else.
While Minnesota, with 10 electoral votes, can’t make up for losses in Michigan and Pennsylvania, with 16 and 20 votes respectively, it could make up for a loss in Wisconsin, which also has 10.
But as states go, it’s tough to imagine Wisconsin flipping to the Democratic column while Minnesota goes red. Ostermeier said that when states flip in a given election cycle, they tend to flip the same direction.
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Minnesota’s electoral votes may not matter much in the scheme of things, but I don’t think that’s the point. Trump, I believe, would see a win in Minnesota as vindication in the state that sent Ilhan Omar to Congress. All politics are personal for Trump, so a win over one of the squad would be punishment for her and the state that elected her (never mind that it was only a part of the state – it would still be in our faces). Nasty women must be punished.
Looking at the home states of the four members of The Squad, those Representatives who have gotten the furthest under his skin, he may have concluded that his best chance is Minnesota. He is pretty much a pariah in his own home state of New York, there is no way Massachusetts is going to vote for him, and Michigan doesn’t look as certain this time around (even the Rasmussen Poll has Trump down by 9 points in Michigan).
I would agree as Trump views this as a game, not a popularity contest – something that is obvious.
The states to watch are the usual, Florida and Ohio. But Trump will need to hold onto North Carolina and Arizona. A loss in any of those states, he will have a higher need to retain one or more of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. A win for him in Minnesota would alleviate the pressure for him to win PA, MI, WI for his path to a win. As he showed in 2016, he has good instincts as to his surprise wins in states Hillary took for granted. Given that Biden has only started to come out of his basement until the last couple of weeks and does not answer questions, Trump sees that there are states that could be for the taking if Biden doesn’t show any serious desire to win and continues his sheepish campaign.
I think you are underestimating the general loathing with which Trump is regarded in many corners. I sincerely doubt he is going to pick up many votes because Biden has been keeping his campaign low key so far.
More than vindication, I think Trump would see winning Minnesota as a trophy. “Look, I flipped the state that no Republican has been able to take since Nixon!”. As usual, it’s all about his ego (although I don’t see how yet another comparison to Nixon would be something that any reasonable person would seek . . . . . . . . . . )
” Trump, I believe, would see a win in Minnesota as vindication in the state that sent Ilhan Omar to Congress. ”
What may or may not go on in the addled and degenerate mind belonging to Trump is anyone’s guess. However, we know for sure that the people who would see a Trump victory as vindication for their anti-Omar mentalities are folks such as yourself. To the extent that you may share Trump’s perspective here that’s something you might want to reflect upon.
Meanwhile, in the REAL world we have to note that it was HRC, not Omar or the “Squad” who brought MN withing striking distance of a Trump victory, and Clinton did this long before anyone on the Squad had a single seat in Congress. Again, to the extent Democrats are in danger of “losing” MN they have nothing and no one but their own moderation and decades of accommodation with Republicans to blame, unless you think Mondale was a raving progressive decades ahead of is time? Whatever.
My suggestion is that “moderate/centrist” Democrats make an attempt to control their extremist impulses for a couple months here and stop attacking Omar and the “Squad” long enough to organize an effective campaign against Republicans. If you’re worried about the State flipping to Trump, maybe find ways to campaign for Biden/Harris instead of finding new ways and reasons to attack Omar? Just a thought, but nobody listens to me.
“However, we know for sure that the people who would see a Trump victory as vindication for their anti-Omar mentalities are folks such as yourself.”
Funny, I always regarded myself as a supporter of Rep. Omar and have regarded the attacks on her as being largely the cries of those who see “their” political order changing right in front of them. The fact that Trump hates her is a point in her favor, as far as I’m concerned.
It’s really not too hard to get inside Trump’s head. He is not just stupefyingly ignorant, he is a narcissist of the first order and the most petty, vindictive man to hold public office in the history of this country. Once you understand that, it’s pretty simple to figure him out.
Thank you for the correction RB, I apologize for mischaracterizing your position, I had you confused with someone else.
No problem. I get that a lot.
Simply put, it was the stay-at-home not-enthusiastic-about-Hillary non-voters in 2016 that allowed Trump to be within striking distance, since Trump received only about as many votes as Romney did in 2012. If these voters are re-mobilized (as they should be) and more young and minority voters do their part, the race for President and the US Senate seat should remain Democratic. Plus, there does seem to be some dissatisfaction among farmers over the disastrous Trump tariffs that could lessen his margin out in Greater Minnesota, and many seniors are upset about potential cuts to Medicare and Social Security and the Administration’s inept pandemic response efforts.
Ostermeier summarizes reality quite well. It is very hard to see a Trump path to victory here. I think they’re making an effort here on the misguided belief that the 2020 race is similar to 2016; the campaign seems more directed by Trump’s gut than a real analysis of the electorate. Their path to 270 requires PA & FL, where their numbers are slipping. Making a play for MN is a poor strategy, driven by ego, not reality.
Trump seems intent on self destruction.
Calling war dead and prisoners of war losers? He is making weak denials but it is very consistent with how he has diminished military service and families that sacrifice so much.
Add to that how a Trump has never served in the military and for many year Trump considered himself smart to dodge paying taxes to support the military. He also has made many pledges to veterans causes he didn’t keep. Conduct unbecoming a Commander in Chief.
Then his admission on tape revealed this week that he intentionally lied about the grave threat posed by coronavirus to “prevent panic.” His goal was to prevent damage to his re-election campaign.
His discouragement of reasonable precautions shows his indifference to the health and well-being of the country. Most other developed countries have infection rates only 10% of ours. This week virtual school is still required after his supporters did not to their party to bring the rates down.
We will have another crisis over the next four years in addition to our unresolved one. Trump has proven that he has no crisis management skills and substitutes his crazy ideas for expertise. There is no reason with a clean election and Minnesota’s traditional high turnout that he will win.
Don’t underestimate the burning of Minneapolis during riots and the lame response from DFL leaders. Leave your little bubble and you will see Trump signs in places you never saw GOP support. After Biden’s poll numbers collapsed he did a 180 on riots and even claimed to care about manufacturing jobs. Funny for 40 years he supported the off shoring of American Manufacturing jobs but now he claims to care…. Flip/floppers never do well!
Sorry Joe, despite Trumpian legend, any positive Trump economic indicator is simply a continuation of Obama’s upward trends:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/09/05/trump-obama-economy/
So, pre-Covid Trump could have honestly proclaimed:
“Look at me! I did not screw up the Obama economy!”
Now, not so much.
It is very clever that Trump creates so much noise that we seem to have forgotten his RNC pledge to repeal and replace Social Security by ending it’s funding mechanism: the payroll tax. Well, like the ACA, just move to repeal and then tell us:
“Nobody knew how complex SS really is!”
Wake up and smell the coffee, don’t be the last one off the Trump ship as it sinks to the bottom.
Joe, your ongoing reference to our little bubble only reveals your own. Trump offers nothing hopeful, nothing forward thinking, nothing to build a future on, and certainly nothing that makes any attempt at all to pull the disparate individuals of this country together. No matter what your politics, after an election it’s a time to come together and try to make our communities better. Neither Trump nor his earnest followers offer anything hopeful at all, unless you’re an angry white who’s fearful of change, and scared that a Biden election will serve to send you faster and farther down that road of irrelevancy which is your destiny.
You harp on the rioting and damage which horrifies us all, but you refuse to recognize that in those demonstrations is a cry of desperation that must be heard. Are you suggesting more aggressive police tactics would’ve brought peace? You would be terribly wrong to think so.
And by the way, our governor’s “lame response” did not claim a single life. Walz showed restraint at a level most of us will never have to face.
When did Biden’s poll numbers “collapse?”
Speaking of polls, one done by Monmouth University says that 54% of the respondents think the protestors’ actions, including the burning of the Third Precinct, were at least partially justified. 78% say that the anger that led to the protests was at least partially justified.
https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_060220/
Maybe I have more faith in the intelligence of the American public than you do, but do you really think that people are fool enough not to realize that the riots came to us after three years of the Trump presidency?
Joe…really. Endorsing trump means endorsing values like adultery, tax evasion, draft dodging, prostitution and abandonment of responsibility to family. but the good news is that you get some Confederate statues. Are you wearing your mask?
Poll numbers? Huh. Most Don Trump supporters tell us the polls are all wrong.
What gives?
A single fire, started because of a gender reveal party, has caused more damage than all of the riots and looting across the country.
Intelligent people understand that the protests are essential in democracy and that the rioting and looting is separate from it and so far inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.
I must admit I skimmed parts of this piece, but I turn your attention to white women in the suburbs who went for Trump in 2016. They are so turned off by this lying pos they’re going Blue in 2020. They just won’t be lied to twice.
Thank you Julie, you nail it for the most part. HRC’s failure to win the white woman vote was an astounding feat of incompetence unlikely to be duplicated by Biden after 4 years of Trump. We know that white women, and Obama voters who stayed home were the pivotal votes (or non-votes) that put Trump over the top in 2016. If White women flip, and more Obama voters show up for Biden, the only thing that could save Trump would be voter suppression and corruption. Those are the same suburban white women who booted Jason Lewis.
Never say that something is unlikely when it comes to politics. While the state has been a place where Democrats have won most elections over the past years, Mr. Trump has a way of twisting the truth and having ignorant people latch onto his stories.
It is naive to place a headline like the one we have on this article for many to read.
Minnesota had unusually high turnout in 2018 than past mid-term elections. Democrats were very motivated. In 2016, the Libertarian presidential candidate likely pulled votes from both major candidates. Hard to predict 2020 turnout with COVID. Rural voters may feel safer going to the polls than urban voters.
It is going to get easier to win Minnesota for President Trump as long as Joe Biden is doing interviews. Jake Tapper pressEd Biden on NAFTA versus USMCA, Biden agreed USMCA much better. I still am amazed that folks here at Minnpost won’t agree that USMCA protects American jobs, hell, their presidential candidate agrees it does.
Haven’t seen what you are raving about, Joe, but Canada and Mexico made a couple of minor concessions on NAFTA in order for Trumpolini to claim some sort of largely meaningless trade “victory”; pretty smart diplomacy on their part, given their trading partner had “elected” an unqualified ignoramus and blathering demagogue as president. And there’s no reason for Biden to trash the minor concessions made by those nations, as he certainly thinks NAFTA was a sound policy (whether it is or not.)
In the grand scheme of things, Trump’s breathless re-branding (and ultimate reaffirming) of NAFTA is actually a breach of his campaign promise to “abolish NAFTA!”, and isn’t worth a hill of beans. There’s no reason for Biden to fight a meaningless battle.
You had better inform your presidential candidate of how bad the USMCA is, he seems to think it is much better than NAFTA. Biden offshored jobs for 50 years, do you actually think he has changed?
First, I doubt most people know what the “USMCA” is. Trump supporters will just know that it is something good because the Great Helmsman told them it was, but other than that, I don’t think it’s going to resonate.
Second, even leaving aside the fact that USMCA is basically a few tweaks and a rebranding of NAFTA, it’s really not going to make that much of a difference. You can holler about jobs on the Iron Range until you’re blue in the face, but real analysts who aren’t on basic cable stations say that the new version of NAFTA will have a negligible effect, at best, on the US economy (the International Trade Commission says that the best case scenario is the addition of 51,000 new manufacturing jobs over the next six years, and increase the US GDP by something like 0.35%, https://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/pub4889.pdf).
Is it better? Perhaps marginally. Is it in reality anything to kvell about other than saying Trump has racked up another victory in his struggle against satan-worshipping cannibals?
Gomer Pyle, USMC…er, A!
That’s the problem, people didn’t know what NAFTA was either but since Billy Clinton said it was good, Lefties applauded. Way back Ross H Perot warned that sucking sound you are hearing is your manufacturing jobs leaving USA thanks to NAFTA…. Again, another businessman, calling out a bad deal. Tariffs on Chinese steel being dumped thru Canada is good for American steel industry. Having parts made for cars being American made is good for American workers. Globalists hate the new USCMA, America First folks love it.
Lefties applauded NAFTA? Lefties favoring the free global flow of capital? What planet are you on?
The AFL-CIO opposed NAFTA. So, interestingly, did the Socialist Workers’ Party.
Trump will flip MN , guaranteed. The riots and the Governor’s response to those and covid have turned far too many over to Trump’s side. Using Ellison as a measure isn’t valid because he was elected in a non presidential election. Voter turnout is almost always lower in off year elections. As for polls, just ask Hillary how those worked out for her. Any poll with a 5+% moe is quite unreliable at best.
MN turnout in 2018 was 2.6 million, 90% of 2016 turnout of 2.9 million. Just some facts.
Now, since you say the urban riots have “turned far too many over” to Trumpolini in MN, please tell us where these voters tend to reside and a little bit about their demographics. Should be easy if it’s such a large number, and you’re surely basing this on research and not just pulling this assertion out of you know where….
Yeah, and of course we know that a majority of the protesters were actually suburban white folks. The idea that the “riots” mobilized or swung people to trump is simply a product of the ongoing and persistent Republican delusion of being the “silent/moral/whatever” majority. They’ve been drinking this cool-aid for decades. All we can say is that they’re in for a rude awakening one way or another.
The unspoken “theory” of Trump Victory 2020 appears to be that a large segment of MN Hillary voters are going to rise up en-mass and “punish” the “lame DFL leaders” for the Floyd riots by voting for corrupt conman Donald Trump this time around. “I’m voting for the unqualified, impeached fool I rejected last time because riots! Yeah, that’ll teach those DFLers!” Illogic and emotion mixed together and poured over rat poison. Skoal!
Such voters likely exist only in a “conservative” fantasy world of emotion. And continuing delusions about the True American(tm) majority, as you say.
“The riots and the Governor’s response to those and covid have turned far too many over to Trump’s side.”
Because everyone is so supportive of Trump’s response to COVID, right? They approve of being lied to about a deadly pandemic.
I’m not up on my internet acronyms. Is this where I’m supposed to say “smh?”
I live in Carver County, traditionally pretty Republican. I’ve noticed more DFL and Biden signs than I would expect, given that history. I’ve also noticed fewer Republican and Trump signs than I would expect.
This is a well balanced article that lays out both sides arguments pretty well, thanks.
It’s very hard to know what to make of this “Minnesota in play!” cry. One would think that it is mere wishful thinking on the part of Trumpolini, given the state’s loooooong voting history and his own abject failure and corruption, which are not traits of Minnesota politicians or government. One would think that the “argument” for the unqualified fool Trump was made and lost in Minnesota in 2016, and that nothing could be done by the political criminal in the WH to reverse that sensible verdict. And this without even considering the total failure, scandal and corruption of the Trump regime that has been documented (daily) for 4 years now!
Yet here the polls are, with 45% of Minnesotans apparently dying for more scandal., lawbreaking and paralysis. As Mr Kendrick says so eloquently, Trump is literally offering nothing but some preposterous and illogical idea that he[!] can better keep a suburbanite or farmer “safe” (from urban riots!) than Biden. As though 4 more years of Trumpism could possibly keep anyone anywhere more “safe”. To think this is to have abandoned rational thought and devolved to Lizard-brainism. Are a majority of Minnesotans really that debased? It seems unlikely.
Thus, one has to chalk this up to a Trump vanity project, as Mr Holbrook implies. Trump being Trump, he has to have a campaign that is “playing offense!”, and Minnesota appears to be (literally) the only 2016 Blue State which he is within hailing distance of victory. Every dollar spent here is one that can’t be spent some other place where Trump is equally underwater, so I guess the best response to the disgusting Trump and his family of preening sycophants is “bring it on”. Biden looks to be willing to match resources with Trump in MN, so he won’t be accused of pulling a Hillary. And it’s being reported now that Trump has wasted $800 million in campaign funds so far, and is actually running out of cash. Not much of a surprise, since he is one of the most brazenly and spectacularly failed Biznessmen we’ve had to watch on the American scene for decades.
If you don’t mind I’ll repeat part of comment I made elsewhere:
Biden has three advantages that HRC didn’t have in 2016:
1) He doesn’t enter field with historically high levels of unpopularity and distrust.
2) In 2020 Trump’s incompetence and corruption aren’t hypothetical predictions, they’re historical fact. That gives Biden and advantage Clinton couldn’t have had.
3) This article describes Biden’s lead in the polls as “equivalent” to HRC’s at this point but in fact he has does have a significantly larger lead, and Trump’s campaign is imploding far more spectacularly than it did when he faced Clinton.
Trump’s campaign is a disaster. That didn’t stop him from winning in 2016 but he’s a known quantity in 2020, and Americans don’t like what they know now. My only concern about Biden is that his strategy of sitting back and letting Trump defeat himself might fail to energize the voters he needs to turn out. I’d like to see more reasons to vote for Biden rather than hope that Trump will manage to drive voters away.
Plenty of worthy commentary here – well, if not “worthy,” then at least “interesting” or “entertaining” – but I’m inclined strongly toward Kevin Schumacher’s cogent argument against Trump. I also thoroughly enjoyed the “good news” Schumacher presented.
I have often thought that the election of Jesse Ventura seemed like a precursor to the election of Trump. There are many differences, of course—Ventura was a third party candidate, and didn’t seem like a total dumpster fire of a human being, at least at the time. But Trump and Ventura are similar in some ways—they are both entertainers who appeal to a sort of stereotypical blue-collar masculinity. If nothing else, the Ventura election shows that this sort of figure does appeal to many Minnesotans, and this state can yield some unpredictable results.
So I would not be terribly surprised if Minnesota did go for Trump this time, though I’d be very sad to see it happen. What worked for Walz in 2018, I believe, is that he was able to appeal to some voters outside urban areas (especially since he is not from the Twin Cities metro), while maintaining adequate support in the cities. Hopefully Biden can manage to repeat that success and keep Minnesota in the blue column.
Elsa, you are right in seeing similarities between Ventura and The Dump. Both are self-absorbed macho-image men who have a certain blue collar appeal. Historically Minnesota is an independent-minded state, so it is not surprising that it is neither flamingly liberal nor arch-conservative in its voting history. In a sense that leaves the winner of this state harder to predict. That independent mindset is seen in our half century of voting for Democrats in the WH campaigns.
Ventura’s huge disappointment was his handling of the golden opportunity that was handed to him – an election win where the state wanted neither of the mainstream candidates. Whoa! Pulling the old maverick act! Bully for you, brother! Minnesota went for the independent dude!
Now, given that situation, with some imagination Ventura could’ve worked to pull together the two poles he split. He could’ve articulated (well, someone in his campaign could’ve) a vision of progressive thinking that gave a nod to the state’s earlier history of creating the DFL party and drew Minnesotans together. But like a smaller version of the current blowhard in DC who is awful busy draining the swamp these days, Ventura was all about Ventura. He did nothing for 3rd party candidates, did nothing to create a broader more unifying message, did nothing to build a coalition across urban/rural and all the other divides that have become so painfully clear now. He should’ve stuck with rasslin’.
The sorry part of this whole story is that upwards of 45% in this state still believe that old blue collar workin’ man nonsense. After almost 4 years, what has the Dump done for you? What are you looking for? I mean, beyond his trashing of the environment, lying pathologically, fanning the flames of social discord, inciting hate groups to action, taking a chainsaw to the three pillars of government, using the U.S. Constitution for toilet paper, maligning everyone who disagrees with him, keeping a rotating door of hires and fires always spinning, cozying up to repressive regimes and isolating all our nation’s allies, what else are you hoping to see from him in the next four years that will add to the quality of your lives?
Here in rural SE MN, I feel like a member of the French Resistance behind enemy lines. Everywhere you go there’s a Trump sign or flag. I like to think that Biden supporters are just as numerous or even more so. They’re just not as in-your-face about it.
It must be like living in the Metro, only here nobody in their right mind advertises that they might vote for Trump or someone WILL get in their face.
You mean, someone might ARGUE with them?! Oh, how terrible! Why can’t a supporter of a confrontational President who spends so much time provoking hostile reactions just be left alone?
You are not alone. The latest poll of MN-1 from last week puts Feehan at 41% and Hagedorn at 41% with 18% undecided or possibly voting for a third party candidate.