Minnesota as Culturally Different from Rest of Midwest

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There are a whole host of factors at play in Minnesota.  The newer suburbs are full of younger baby boomers and gen xers that migrated to Minnesota from strongly Republican plains states.  The last GOP state house majority leader was from North Dakota and lived in Maple Grove, a conservative 2nd ring suburb of Minneapolis.

The arrowhead region is insular and has been slowly declining for decades.  The iron range is now dominated by older baby boomers as their kids left for greener pastures.  But these areas aren't really that socially conservative.  They are pretty liberal.  Unlike the working class whites elsewhere, these ones liberalized with the party.  Duluth is, of course, as progressive as places like Portland or Boston... But more left wing on economic issues.  They put bike lanes all over Duluth... A city covered in snow five months out of the year situated on a large steep hill oike San Francisco.

The farm areas have trended republican but the DFL is still as competitive as ever there.  Those areas have always been D friendly, but not hostile to the GOP.

But culturally, Minnesota very much has its own thing.  North Dakota shares many of the same traits, as does western WI and NE IA and NW IL.

I think Minnesota is the epicenter of that distinct upper midwestern/northern culture but it only encompasses small portions of the surrounding states which are being influenced in other ways.

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