What explains Cook County, Minnesota?

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

89% white mostly rural county that if anything became slightly more Democratic leaning under Trump.

[If my soul was made of stone]

Ancestral "ethnic" Catholic Democrats + the labor history of the Arrowhead + becoming resort country like the other rural Great Lakes counties that swung towards Biden (Door, Leelanau)

[Alcibiades]

Ancestral "ethnic" Catholic Democrats + the labor history of the Arrowhead + becoming resort country like the other rural Great Lakes counties that swung towards Biden (Door, Leelanau)

I would place far more stock on the last factor than the first two. This is, after all, a county which voted Republican in every presidential election from 1952 to 1984, except for 1964 obviously, and voted for Bush as recently as 2000.

[If my soul was made of stone]

Ancestral "ethnic" Catholic Democrats + the labor history of the Arrowhead + becoming resort country like the other rural Great Lakes counties that swung towards Biden (Door, Leelanau)

I would place far more stock on the last factor than the first two. This is, after all, a county which voted Republican in every presidential election from 1952 to 1984, except for 1964 obviously, and voted for Bush as recently as 2000.

Certainly, but those factors explain its pre-New Deal Democratic leanings at a time when the state was overwhelmingly Republican, as well as the higher Democratic floor that it held when it was Republican-leaning.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Ancestral "ethnic" Catholic Democrats + the labor history of the Arrowhead + becoming resort country like the other rural Great Lakes counties that swung towards Biden (Door, Leelanau)

There are lots of Chicago and Minneapolis liberal retirees moving there. Those Great Lakes resort counties are like ski resort counties in the Mountain West.

[TDAS04]

Ancestral "ethnic" Catholic Democrats + the labor history of the Arrowhead + becoming resort country like the other rural Great Lakes counties that swung towards Biden (Door, Leelanau)

“Ethnic” Democrats are not necessarily Catholic, certainly not in this area.  Norwegians, Swedes, Finns?  Certainly not.

Anyway, as Alcibiades said, the last factor is by far the most important for Cook specifically.  Grand Marais is a very artsy, environmentally-conscious community, and Cook is socially liberal.  It voted against the 2012 proposed gay marriage ban with almost 60%, while neighboring Lake voted for it.  The social/cultural liberalism explains why Cook is actually trending Democratic, unlike the rest of Arrowhead.

[Schiff for Senate]

While I agree on most of what's said about Clay County, I don't see how it's shifted bluer from 2012. It literally halved Obama's margin for Biden - from exactly 8% to exactly 4%; Trump in 2020 improved on Romney by precisely 2%, while Biden declined on Obama 2012 by the same amount: it went for Obama 52.7-44.7%, and for Biden 50.7-46.7% (it went for Trump by a 2% margin, 46.1-44.1%).