Despite our closely divided state legislature and red county map, it’s not controversial to say Minnesota is a blue state.
In presidential elections, Minnesota holds the longest streak among the 50 states of voting for Democratic presidential candidates, remaining steadfastly blue since 1976.
Yet, just a few months ago, DFL officials were struggling to combat fraud allegations throughout the state’s welfare system and their political ramifications on the upcoming gubernatorial election.
Eric Ostermeier, a research fellow with the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs, said even though Republicans had not been elected to a Minnesota statewide office since former Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s 2006 re-election, the number of bona fide Republican candidates in the race demonstrates they believed they had a chance to flip the governorship.
“Despite all that history, prior to Walz exiting the race, Minnesota Republicans really acted as if they were bullish on this race,” Ostermeier said. “They smelled blood in the water.”
It’s true the fraud allegations had a serious impact on Gov. Tim Walz’s popularity. In December, his approval rating had fallen to 48% according to a KSTP poll, the lowest rating recorded in the past four years of his tenure. This sort of decrease in public support might have opened the door for a serious Republican challenge for the governorship.
However, that ship has sailed within the past three months, if not capsized completely. This sort of quick reversal may be unexpected, but it is deeply rooted in the circumstances Minnesota is facing right now.
The first of these circumstances is something that has been on the minds of everyone in Minnesota: ICE. The killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents, in conjunction with the overwhelming number of immigration enforcement officers in the Twin Cities, have horrified both Minnesotans and the nation.
As of a poll released Thursday, almost two-thirds of Americans believe ICE has gone too far, an 11-point increase since last summer.
Ostermeier said while the nationalization of Minnesota’s fraud issue gave Republican candidates a real chance to win the governorship, ICE enforcement measures in the state dulled that advantage.
“Prior to the Operation Metro Surge, Republicans did have a real opportunity to flip this seat despite the historical blueprint and their losing streak,” Ostermeier said.
The measures taken by federal immigration enforcement officers have been so controversial that even Republican candidate Chris Madel dropped out of the race, denouncing federal authorities and saying that the national Republicans have made it nearly impossible for a Republican to win a statewide election in Minnesota.
Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the Humphrey School, said the loss of immigration and fraud as effective campaign issues is bad news for Republican candidates.
“The issue of immigration has been incinerated,” Jacobs said. “It’s no longer that effective for Republicans. In fact, Republicans are running away from it because it’s now equated with brutality in Minneapolis.”
Secondly, while fraud proved an effective political messaging strategy, Republicans leaned into it too much, forcing Walz out of the race.
Jacobs said Republicans now face a significant challenge with the new Democratic frontrunner, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who has a strong electoral history and massive campaign “war chest.”
“The kicker is that, in part because of the fraud stories that the Republicans were capitalizing on politically, a wounded Tim Walz has left the race, and Republicans now face candidate-killer Amy Klobuchar,” Jacobs said.
A recent SurveyUSA poll has Klobuchar ahead of all the major Republican candidates by at least 14%, receiving around half of the vote with a significant number of undecided voters.
To complicate matters even further for Minnesota Republicans, there is no clear indication of who the Republican nominee will be to rival Klobuchar. There are currently at least 11 candidates vying for the party’s endorsement for governor, even after Madel dropped out of the race.
While former state Sen. Scott Jensen had a slightly better result compared to the other Republican candidates in the SurveyUSA poll, Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth led in the straw polls from Tuesday’s precinct caucuses.
Former healthcare CEO Kendall Qualls has raised the most money so far among Republican candidates, whereas MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has received praise from President Donald Trump, who said Lindell deserves to be the governor of Minnesota.
All of this uncertainty leaves the Minnesota GOP without a clear figure or frontrunner to coalesce around, while Klobuchar received 79% of votes in her party’s caucus straw poll.
Even when a clear Republican candidate for governor emerges, which might take months, they will have to deal with the electoral effects of Trump’s low approval rating, something that may have already played a role in the 31-point electoral swing toward the Democratic Party in a Texas special election.
At the end of the day, it’s possible Republicans will flip the governorship. It’s important to recognize that I don’t have a crystal ball or a time machine, so trying to claim that I can definitively predict the outcome of an election would be unwise.
Still, it is shocking how, largely through the actions of the federal government and their own party, Minnesota Republicans have seen a major electoral advantage slip through their fingers.
Politics can be awfully ironic sometimes.
