2024 Election Analysis: Why Minnesota Republicans are on Track to Flop Again
Why the Republicans Haven't Been Able to Bring it Together in the North Star State
I probably don’t have to tell you what happened in the 2016 presidential election. You already know the answer to who won, even if you pay absolutely no attention to politics. To this day, we still cannot avoid the consequences of it. Presidential elections are always going to be consequential in one way or another, but Donald Trump’s bombastic and divisive profile on the national stage ensured that his presence would leave a mark not seen by any other person who has had the privilege of serving the role as the most powerful human on Earth.
And when you look at the election results, you’ll realize that it all came down to one region. In this case, it was the Midwest, a region that had served as the foundation of virtually every Democratic victory since the days of Franklin Roosevelt. But in light of growing distance from the Democratic Party over cultural issues and suffering the burden of industrial job losses to automation and free trade deals, they swung massively towards Donald Trump, who was stoking up fears of increasing immigration into the United States and promising to stop those aforementioned free trade deals. Not only did this flip the traditional bellwether state of Ohio, but it also brought over the traditionally Democratic-leaning states of Wisconsin, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Michigan into Trump’s camp, giving him the election in the process.
Not only did this serve the role of making Trump one of the most important figures in modern history, but it also served as a symbol of a potentially brand-new coalition. For decades, even if the states were competitive, they would consistently vote more Democratic than the rest of the nation, meaning that they would always be key to any Democratic win. But with Trump flipping these states red and Clinton improving on Democratic numbers with suburban voters in states like Texas, Arizona, and Georgia, it meant that for the first time in decades, these Midwestern states would be more Republican than the nation as a whole. After the election, it looked like the future coalition for both parties was being drawn. For Democrats, they would win off the back of voters in states with diverse communities, highly educated suburban areas, and quickly growing populations. For Republicans, their coalition was in states with predominately white populations, lower education levels on average, and states suffering from economic and population decline.
While this prospect was somewhat terrifying for Republicans in Sun Belt states, it painted a bright future for Midwestern Republicans. Not only did it have the possibility of solidifying the machines they built in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio throughout the 2010s, but it also had the opportunity of turning other traditionally Democratic states red, giving them a short-term advantage in elections going forward as Democrats struggled to jump the hurdle of flipping states like Texas and Georgia blue.
And out of all of these states, there was none that Trump wanted to flip more than the North Star State.
While Trump is well known for focusing on things that serve no political benefit, his obsession with flipping Minnesota red was not entirely unfounded. As the blue wall in the Midwest completely collapsed, Minnesota stood alongside the solidly blue state of Illinois as one of the only two states in the Midwest that voted for Hillary Clinton, allowing Minnesota to keep its status as the longest-running blue state in the country on the national level1. But while she did keep the state blue, her performance was still shockingly poor, only managing to carry the state by a 1.5% margin, the worst showing for a Democratic presidential candidate since Walter Mondale in 1984.
But that fact alone doesn’t explain the full story of just how bad her showing was. While Democrats have done poorly in the state before, it usually occurred under the context of a national Republican wave. While Mondale did worse than Clinton when you strictly focused on numbers, it happened while the nation voted for Ronald Reagan by 18 points nationally. Minnesota, being the only state to vote for Mondale that year, would vote over 18 points more Democratic than the nation as a whole, solidifying its place as a Democratic stronghold. Clinton, who had won the popular vote nationwide by about 2 points, would end up becoming the first Democrat since 1952 to perform worse in Minnesota compared to the rest of the nation.
This fact instantly made Minnesota a target for Trump and the Republicans. If they were really on track to improve big time with white and low-educated voters, then Minnesota should come to them in no time. It was Midwestern, had a declining industrial center in the form of the Iron Range, and didn’t have a diverse population on the horizon. To many, the future of Minnesota was seemingly already set. It would soon join the ranks of Indiana and Ohio, becoming another symbol of Republican dominance in the Midwest.
Of course, when we fast forward to 2023, we all know this didn’t happen. Not only did Republicans fail to gain significant ground in Minnesota’s elected offices, but they have managed to fall off from their previously established influence, losing both the State House and State Senate, two bodies that they held in 2016. While they have made gains with voters in Greater Minnesota2, it has not resulted in a single statewide win. Their previous advantage in national trends is gone, as Joe Biden managed to get Minnesota to vote more Democratic than the nation once again in 2020. The state is hardly on anyone’s radar in 2024, especially as it concurs with Amy Klobuchar’s re-election campaign, an extremely popular Senator expected to win re-election by a massive margin. While commentary in 2016 suggested that Minnesota would have been a red state by now, they are no closer to actually pulling that off than they were then.
On the one hand, this is a remarkable success story for the DFL. While national trends may have suggested that the party was on track to fall to minority status, they have done everything in their power to stop this from happening. Understanding who and where the future Democratic base was, they have made a considerable effort to shift in a direction that appeals directly to them. This was shown off the best in 2022, when the DFL would take full advantage of the Dobbs effect to bring the party full control of the state, flipping the State Senate and holding onto all of their previously held offices. Not only have they played defense masterfully, but they have been able to turn the trajectory of the state around in the process, keeping it in the blue column for the foreseeable future.
On the other hand, this is a massive failure for Republicans. After their strong showing in 2016, one may assume that they would use the opportunity to build real political infrastructure of their own in Minnesota, one that would be primed to take over once national trends began to set in. However, at every chance they had since 2016, they have completely fumbled the bag. Just like how 2022 showed off the political mastery of the DFL, 2022 also showed off the complete ineptitude of the Minnesota GOP. They had a red-leaning national environment, an unpopular Democratic president, and controversial DFL incumbents. All of these things that should have benefitted them meant nothing on Election Day, which saw Republicans kicked out of power completely for the first time since 2014. Once a truly terrifying prospect, the Minnesota GOP has turned into a total laughing stock, not even being able to get triple-digit numbers in its own bank account. In terms of incompetence, it’s hard to compete with these guys unless you live in Rocky Mountain High.
In this short piece, I want to go over why the Republicans have been struggling, where they need to improve, and why their current path as a party suggests that they are likely going to blow it again. In doing so, I want to show not only the incompetence of the Minnesota Republican Party but also how their ideology fundamentally clashes with electoral success in Minnesota.
How Did It Go Wrong?
After the 2016 election, the Republican Party had reasons to be optimistic about Minnesota. Sure, they didn’t win the state. But national trends suggested that they were well on track to become the dominant party in just a few years. This wasn’t just a fantasy that was born from the fact that they flipped other neighboring Midwestern states. Minnesota, just like those other states, saw the Republicans score massive gains in traditionally Democratic rural and industrial communities. Of the 28 counties that voted for Barack Obama in 2012, only 9 of them would vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016. All of the counties that Trump flipped were those aforementioned traditionally Democratic hubs, many of which hadn’t voted Republican in decades. This allowed Trump to come very close to flipping the state red and also allowing it to vote to the right of the nation in the process.
But while the gains were significant, these results also painted an early warning sign for Minnesota Republicans. While Clinton’s showing was incredibly weak, she managed to avoid total death by making improvements on Obama’s margin in one key part of the state: the Twin Cities metro. While Clinton’s weakness as a candidate and the higher population of these cities prevented many of them from swinging as hard as the rural areas did for Trump, her gains would be substantial enough that she would manage to hold onto the state.
This should have been a key concern for Republicans. Their gains in Greater Minnesota were good, but if they came at the expense of losing voters in the quickly growing Twin Cities, they end up in a worse position in the long run. They needed to find a way to strike a balance, appealing to traditional Democrats while not losing too much of their moderate Republican base in the suburbs. A tall order, but one they should have had a plan for if they were serious about winning the state. So, what did they decide to do?
As Donald Trump’s presidency spurred more partisan division and anti-Republican sentiment, the Minnesota GOP decided that instead of trying to walk the tightrope, they would fully embrace and go into the arms of the president and his movement. After all, he’s the one who got them this close! He should be in a prime position to bring the Republicans newfound success in the state. Who needs the Twin Cities? We’ll just take all the votes out of the rural areas and win that way, right?
Well, as we can see now, this strategy has been a total failure. For one thing, the party has been unable to get much more juice out of these rural communities. While some of them have shifted to the right, it has never been by anywhere near as much as 2016, with most of them looking the same on the map as they did then. While the DFL is not on track to win them back any time soon, the Republicans haven’t been able to tap much more energy from these places.
This fact is made even worse when you factor in their other problem: massive losses in the Twin Cities. As the party embraced Trump, suburban voters began to flee from the party at record speed, a trend seen all across the country, but something that hit Minnesota harder than most states. It began in 2018, which saw Republicans lose both the 2nd and 3rd congressional districts, each representing a significant chunk of the Twin Cities suburbs in their own rights. It went further in 2020 when Joe Biden put up the best performance for a presidential Democrat in the Twin Cities in history. The massive gains he’d make in the region, alongside smaller gains in the Duluth and Rochester areas, would propel him to a solid 7-point victory, a significant swing left from 2016 and putting the state back to being more Democratic than the nation once again. Finally, it all came to a head in 2022 when the suburbs would propel the DFL to win a statewide trifecta, which served as a backlash to Republicans for their views on abortion and small d-democratic principles.
These losses, more so than anything else, are the thing that is killing the Republicans in Minnesota. Even if they make massive gains in the rural areas, they cannot live while bleeding this much in the Twin Cities. They just can’t. So long as the DFL continues to gain in the suburbs, they will continue to dominate the state. Simple as that.
So, with that in mind, where do the Republicans go from here?
Where They Need to Improve, and Why The GOP (Probably) Won’t Listen
When looking at population changes throughout the state of Minnesota, it’s pretty obvious that the GOP strategy of focusing solely on driving up rural margins is not going to work. Even if they do gain substantially here (which they haven’t been able to do thus far), it would almost certainly be canceled out and destroyed completely by smaller swings for the DFL in the cities and suburbs. Simply put, they cannot afford to be getting under 30% in Hennepin and Ramsey County.
Fortunately for them, they do have something of a template to work off of. While their 2022 showing was atrocious, there was one contest that did show some promise. Granted, it was against a controversial incumbent in a red-leaning year. But at the very least, it showed that if they played their cards right at the right time, they could achieve statewide victory in the state for the first time since 2006. That race in question is the Attorney General contest, which saw Republican Jim Schultz come within just 0.9% of defeating incumbent Democrat Keith Ellison.
While Keith Ellison’s quest for a second term would ultimately be saved by gains in the suburbs of his own, they were nowhere near the same level as those put up by other DFL candidates like Tim Walz and Steve Simon. In fact, he would only manage to earn 68% in Hennepin County, allowing Schultz to cross the 30% threshold in one of the two primary Twin Cities counties. On top of this, Ellison’s showings in Greater Minnesota were some of the worst put up by a Democrat in generations, with Schultz even coming close to 80% of the vote in some of them. While it wasn’t a Republican win, it did have the effect of showing Republicans where they needed to go. If Schultz had done just a bit better in the suburbs, he would be the state Attorney General right now.
Of course, actually winning some of those suburban voters back is easier said than done. For the last seven years, the party has embraced a strategy of defacto Trump worship, which effectively serves as kryptonite for Republican hopes in the suburbs. Not only that, but much of the hard right extremism that is associated with the former president comes along for the ride too, whether it be on abortion rights, election denial, LGBTQ+ rights, or full-throated opposition to even the most reasonable Democratic bills imaginable. This has only made every problem for the Minnesota GOP worse, and if things continue down the road they’re currently on, you should expect even more Democratic gains in the Twin Cities metro. If Republicans are going to win, they need to fundamentally change the course of the ship.
But will they do this?
I doubt it. After all, one of the defining features of the modern Republican Party is that they believe that their movement and ideology is the one supported by the majority of Americans. Ever since Donald Trump won in 2016, that has been the core idea carrying him as leader of the Republican Party. That victory, and the feelings it established in the hearts of millions of conservative Republicans, are still alive and well today. Every time they win an election, it’s more proof that their ideas are beloved and popular. Every time they lose, it is stolen from them by the deep state that is terrified of the MAGA movement. In their mind, there is no need for moderation of any kind. They already have the people on their side. Why would you need to moderate if you are already winning?
Obviously, this mindset is insane. But it also serves the role of killing off Republican hopes in the land of 10,000 lakes. These suburbs, while very white, are also highly educated, secular, and moderate. As the Republicans embrace anti-LGBTQ+, anti-choice, and anti-democracy rhetoric, they are doing nothing but killing more and more of their base in these places. And since these places are the fastest growing in the state, it means there is no other place they can grow in to compensate. Sure, they may flip some Iron Range towns like Eveleth, Virginia, or Chisholm. But it won’t matter if they can’t even get 40% of the vote in Maple Grove, Woodbury, or Chanhassan. And with the GOP set to renominate Trump in 2024, I suspect this problem will only get even worse.
Conclusion
Ultimately, I think the failure of the Minnesota GOP serves as a near-perfect example of the party’s failings on the national stage. After achieving the high of getting close to turning the heart of the Democratic Midwest red, the Minnesota GOP has done nothing but spend the last seven years endlessly chasing that same high. Instead of seeing it as an impressive but flawed result to build off of going forward, they decided that doubling down on the man who lost the state to Hillary Clinton would be the true path forward and that his result was basically already perfect.
Of course, this has done nothing but produce complete and utter failure for them. They still haven’t been able to win a single statewide office since 2006. They lost both the State House and State Senate. They have completely run out of money. They are a shell of their already weak former self. Despite having the backing of around 45% of the Minnesota voting population, they are one of the most irrelevant and weakest parties in the country. Simply put, their strategy has produced nothing but failure.
Despite all of that, they have not strayed away from Trump’s path. Not only is he set to win the Minnesota primary easily, but they are also set to nominate Royce White, a far-right lunatic who associates with Alex Jones and anti-LGBTQ+ conspiracy theories, to be their U.S. Senate candidate in 2024.
The message to take from that is clear: Minnesota Republicans, just like their friends on the national level, haven’t learned anything. They have massive leaks in the ship that need to be patched up, and there is no Minnesota Republican who is willing to fix any of them. It’s not because they don’t care: it’s because they don’t even think they exist. It doesn’t matter how many times they lose, it will always come back to doubling down on what they were already doing.
Perhaps they may break through one day. Maybe there’s a red wave so big and a DFL candidate so poor that they can finally end their losing streak and flip a statewide office. Maybe Trump will win the state in 2024 off the back of a weakened Joe Biden and increased third-party vote splitting. But make no mistake, the GOP had an opportunity to change the politics in the state for generations beyond the symbolism of flipping the state red. By failing to take the right lessons that were clear from day one, they didn’t just allow the DFL to keep its power. They effectively gave them the keys to the kingdom and allowed themselves to become irrelevant politically.
The DFL is a strong party in its own right, but they truly have no greater friend than the Minnesota Republicans. If you are a Democrat, you should be eternally grateful for their remarkable ability to fail time and time again.
Minnesota has not voted for a Republican for President since 1972.
The parts of Minnesota that encompass areas not included in the Twin Cities metropolitan area