Minnesota state legislature analysis: 2010

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I have to turn Senate district 28 to a tossup. Incumbent is retiring.

Sadly I think it's tilt GOP. Obama won it, but barely. Murphy won by only 8 points in 2006, granted it was one of the few districts the GOP made a serious push at but still, it was 2006, he should've done better. GOP controls both House seats too, though the DFL controlled one 2007-2009, one of the few GOP pickups in 2008. Better bench on their side. Bleh.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

We probably have a full list of all retiring legislators:

Sen. Tarryl Clark, DFL-St. Cloud: Running against Bachmann. Seat is probably a slight lean DFL.
Sen. Steve Dille, R-Dassel: Safe R seat.
Sen. Steve Murphy, DFL-Red Wing: Covered above. Will be tough to hold though not impossible.
Sen. Pat Pariseau, R-Farmington: Very safe GOP seat.
Sen. Jim Vickerman, DFL-Tracy: This will be nasty. Very conservative seat. State House member running. Almost certainly a loss. McCain got something like 53% in this district.
Sen. Dennis Frederickson, R-New Ulm: Very strong GOP district, and a hold.
Sen. Mee Moua, DFL-St. Paul: I'm surprised she's retiring as she has an important position. Uber-safe seat regardless.
Sen. Debbie Johnson, R-Ham Lake: Exurban safe GOP seat.

House
Margaret Anderson Kelliher, DFL-Minneapolis: This kind of goes without saying as to how safe it is.
Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Delano: Just as safe a seat as Kelliher's.
Rep. Randy Demmer, R-Hayfield: Will lose to Walz. Pretty safe seat though.
Rep. Dan Severson, R-Sauk Rapids: Running for Secretary of State. Pretty safe seat.
Rep. Doug Magnus, R-Slayton: running for Vickerman's seat in the Senate. Very conservative seat, strong hold.
Rep. Marty Seifert, R-Marshall: Possible pickup in a better year. McCain only won it by 4 points and it's kind of an independent minded district. But this isn't the year to take it. Still the best DFL shot for a pickup.
Rep. Karla Bingham, DFL-Cottage Grove: This is a pretty safe seat. I'm surprised Bingham is retiring though as she's only been in for four terms and she's very young.
Rep. Jeremy Kalin, DFL-North Branch: This will be a very hard one to hold. Seat is historically DFL but exurbanizing. We hold the Senate seat but I explained that above (District 17)
Rep. Cy Thao, DFL-St. Paul: So we lose both Hmong in the legislature unfortunately. Super-safe seat.
Rep. Rob Eastlund, R-Cambridge: The other seat from District 17. Will remain GOP.
Rep. Paul Kohls, R-Victoria: Super-safe exurb seat.
Rep. Laura Brod, R-New Prague: Kind of an odd retirement, was thought to be a rising star, likely Lt. Gov. candidate, and she is young. But the seat should be easy to hold.
Rep. Mary Ellen Otremba, DFL-Long Prairie: This is a loss. The seat is very conservative. Otremba is one of the most conservative DFLers in the House, comparable to Collin Peterson. The seat is based around half of the town of Alexandria, which while small is growing fast and has lots of exurban-type voters around it (rich people moving near the lakes.) In 2008 Otremba won by less than 5 points and lost the Alexandria area, she only won due to the massive margins in the rural areas around it. Probably retiring as she would likely lose this year. Almost a certain GOP pickup.
Rep. Larry Haws, DFL-St. Cloud: Pretty safe seat, this is the DFL northeast part of the city, including the poors and university.

So not much changes with the retirements, though we'll almost certainly lose one Senate seat and two House ones, and another Senate will be tough to hold.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Looks like District 50 could be in trouble after all. The incumbent is under inquiry that he attempted to boost fishing on a lake near which he owns a cabin. And the GOP actually recruited a non-joke opponent as opposed to the insane fundie he faced last time.

The District Committee is considering withdrawing his endorsement. It'll take a 2/3 vote to do so. If they do he'll probably still run in the primary, but if he's primaried, I'll call it Likely DFL. If he makes it to the general, I'll say Toss Up/Tilt DFL. It's still a solid district, but unlike the Twin Cities proper seats it isn't to the point where a damaged Democrat would still be invincible.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

News is about a few weeks old now but since I haven't updated recently, the District 50 committee did revoke the endorsement from Chaudhary. They have given it instead to former State Rep Barb Goodwin.

Goodwin and Chaudhary will face each other in the August 10 primary. Regional results might be interesting...(then again they may not, it's entirely possible that Goodwin destroys Chaudhary everywhere.)

[Ban my account ffs!]

District 4A: Lean DFL. Very DFL-leaning seat, odd just how close the Obama/incumbent's numbers are...

Racially polarized. Lots of Ojibwa here and in 3A and 3B too.

I wouldn't call it racially polarized.  The Natives vote like 92% DFL but the whites are hardly 92% GOP.. probably more like 53-47 GOP for the whole district with my city being the more DFL friendly area for whites.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Now that we know who the candidates are, I should probably update this. I probably will sometime soon.

Chaudhary went down in flames in SD 50, so the seat is now at least Likely DFL.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Now that we know who the candidates are, I can make better calls. I'll do the open seats for now:

15: Toss-up/Tilt GOP. DFL candidate is a member of the St. Cloud school board, GOP candidate is on the St. Cloud city council. Over 70% of St. Cloud voted for the Republican last election but that's not as impressive as it sounds since there's just three at-large seats, voters get three votes and whoever are the top three wins. On the other hand he did get the most votes total out of five. This one might come down to turnout, but the GOP played it smart by not nominating some crazy teabagger activist (St. Cloud has a lot of those types.) This is a GOP pickup if they win.
18: Very conservative district, so it doesn't matter much. GOP candidate looks very conservative but not a Bachmann/Emmer type loon. DFL candidate doesn't look horrible, but in this seat that doesn't matter much. Safe GOP.
21: Safe GOP. The Republican doesn't have a website so I can't say much about him but the Democrat's site is comically unprofessional. Really doesn't matter in this seat where even Amy Klobuchar couldn't break 50%.
22: Lean GOP. Normally I'd write this one off completely if Vickerman's son weren't the DFL nominee. Of course nepotism-type candidates haven't had much success and thus I'm not counting on it, but Vickerman had to be pretty beloved to survive in this part of Minnesota. GOP pickup nonetheless.
28: Lean GOP. I've been prepared to lose this one ever since Murphy announced his retirement. The DFL is running a no-name and the GOP are running the mayor of Red Wing, the largest town in the district and DFL-leaning. GOP pickup.
36: Safe GOP. Candidate looks very conservative but surprisingly non-crazy, DFL candidate looks like the type of guy who should be running in the Twin Cities or at least one of the very inner suburbs. Good guy but no chance. Of course no Democrat would have one here anyway.
49: Lean GOP. In a better year, this could have serious upset potential. Actually I'd argue it still does. The Democrat is the mayor of Ham Lake, the largest city in the district and a very Republican exurb. The Republican is a no-name conservative activist. The incumbent won by less than 5 points last time. This is probably one of the few opportunities for a DFL pickup, but I'm going to play it safe.
67: Safe DFL. Bruising primary here and a lot of people dislike the winner, but in this seat candidates are irrelevant.

That equals three GOP pickups. They need 13 to take the Senate though. I might be able to handicap that with a deeper analysis.

House coming up.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This is cool: http://www.mnprogressiveproject.com/diary/6737/hpvi-senate-districts-sorted

I live in district 61 btw. I never realized we were THAT far to the left of even the other Minneapolis districts. Anyway this made me feel a bit better about Clark's seat as only one GOP-held seat is more DFL than her's. Even Vickerman's doesn't look so bad though one thing to consider is the GOP candidate is one of the State Reps from the seat.

BTW my source did leave off district 7 as the incumbent there is Dayton's running mate. But as you can see by the link, we don't have to worry about that one.

[Kevinstat]

How did Lisa Fobbe get elected in SD 16, which has the third most Republican "hPVI" in the state according to that article?  Was she originally (or even last) elected as a Republican?  Was she in the Senate before 2002 and/or a State Representative in a less Republican district and hung on due to a large personal vote she had garnered?  Was there some mea culpa in 2006 (the last non-special Senate election in Minnesota were that year right - elections in years ending in 2 (four-year term), 6 (four-year term) and 0 (two-year term)?) that resulted in no Republican being on the ballot like the Democrats had in Arkansas in 2008 or 2012 that allowed a Green Party candidate to be elected to one house of their state legislature?  Brusing Republican primary and/or conservative independent/3rd party candidate splitting the non-Democratic vote?  What happened?  And what do you expect to happen this year in that district?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Brusing Republican primary and/or conservative independent/3rd party candidate splitting the non-Democratic vote?

Basically that but the full story behind that district is pretty interesting. Fobbe was actually first elected in 2008, not 2006. Shortly after the 2006 election, Mark Olson, the ultra-conservative State Rep from 16B, the exurban half of the seat and more conservative one was arrested for wife-beating. Reports were that he actually beat her with a copy of the Bible and threw it at her out of anger demanding that as a wife she should submit to him (wish I was making this stuff up.) He was found guilty, given a fine and suspended sentence and expelled from the GOP caucus in the House. Despite this he still ran again but agreed to abide by the convention endorsement. Unsurprisingly he was defeated at the convention in a landslide by defeated former Sec of State Mary Kiffmeyer. He abided by the endorsement and withdrew from the race. However shortly after that Pawlenty appointed the incumbent from that district to a cabinet position, opening up a special election. Hilariously Olson declared his candidacy and was able to get enough of his fundie supporters to come to the special convention to make the endorsement, which he won. The other Republican refused to abide and drop out, and the two faced in the primary, where Olson lost in a landslide. Olson was still very upset over this screaming about how he was backstabbed because he agreed to abide by the endorsement, so he declared a write-in candidacy. In the 2008 election, Fobbe won about 49-48, with Olson's write-in votes making up the remaining 3% in a district McCain won with 58% (Obviously the official Republican candidate was also pretty lousy.)

As for what I expect to happen, I have Fobbe losing but her odds might be better than one might expect. The northern half of the district (16A) is pretty conservative, but it's also rural and actually has a DFL representative (though she'll probably lose this year too and won by an even thinner margin than Fobbe did last time.) Fobbe won by driving up a decent margin in that district winning 53% in a seat Obama only won 41% in. McCain got over 60% in 16B, but the Republican nominee got only 51% to Fobbe's 44%. Matching that 44% again is probably the trickier bit especially since that area is no doubt a stronghold for the Tea Party. To say she has an uphill battle is a understatement but Fobbe can't be entirely ruled out.

[minionofmidas]

Reports were that he actually beat her with a copy of the Bible and threw it at her out of anger demanding that as a wife she should submit to him (wish I was making this stuff up.)

You pretty much can't make that up.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Already time to call this. GOP wins:

Senate
10
16
17
22
28
47
53
56

GOP +8

House
01A
11B
12B
13B
16A
17B
40A
49B
53A
56A
56B

DFL wins:
35B (Upset prediction. Incumbent was arrested for a DUI recently and has got nothing but negative press. Very conservative seat though.)
41A (Represented by an ultra-conservative who won in a fluke 3-way race who doesn't fit it well at all.)

Please note that even in 2006 and 2008 the GOP picked up seats so the DFL winning a few more or even a Senate seat or two isn't out of the question.

Oddly enough that equals only GOP +9 with half as many seats. The DFL has more of these seats down strongly with better personal votes.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

With that I am off to bed. Ugh@the thought of waking up at 7AM...but it needs to be done.