Minnesota

[Eraserhead]

Has there been any recent polling here? I get why people are assuming that Bernie has the edge on the Democratic side but why are people thinking that Rubio is going to take it in the GOP race?

[Ronnie]

I think the assumption is that, because turnout is so low in the state, it favors candidates who are better organized.  Nevada was an exception to the rule, but that's because it was demographically and structurally very strong for Donald Trump.  On the other hand, the region in which MN is located is not nearly as friendly for him.

[socaldem]

In 2012, Santorum cleaned up in the MN caucuses. It doesn't seem that Cruz is necessarily super-organized in that state. Meanwhile, Trump doesn't really have much regional appeal in the "nice guy" midwest. I'm thinking it will probably be a three way split with Trump having an edge.

But as I suggested in another thread, based on the GOP delegate allocation rules for Minnesota, it seems highly likely that the state will also have a nearly even split of delegates...

Green Papers:

"24 district delegates are to be allocated proportionally to presidential contenders based on the caucus results in each congressional district. A mandatory 10% threshold (if no candidate receives 10%, the threshold is 0%) is required in order for a presidential contender to be allocated National Convention delegates at the congressional district level."

"For each candidate who has reached the threshold, starting with the candidate who received the highest number of votes, multiply 3 (delegates per CD) or 14 (delegates statewide) by the number of votes received by that candidate and divide by the total number of votes cast for all presidential candidates who also reached the threshold and round to the nearest whole number."

So if I'm reading this correctly, each candidate will likely start with an 8-8-8 split in congressional district delegates, unless some of the congressional districts are complete blow-outs. I would think that Cruz might be shut out of the Minneapolis district but that otherwise the candidates would have relatively even strength. So, we're likely looking at 8-8-8 or 8-9-7 (T-R-C).

Statewide, with only 14 delegates to allocate, my prediction is 5-4-5 (T-R-C), with Trump edging out Cruz for a win but all three major candidates clustered in high 20s to low 30s.

So that would result in a final delegate allocation of 13-13-12 (T-R-C).

[Mr. Morden]

I get why people are assuming that Bernie has the edge on the Democratic side but why are people thinking that Rubio is going to take it in the GOP race?

I don't think Rubio's a favorite there by any means, but it's one state where I could imagine Trump underperforming, and maybe even Cruz or Rubio winning.  The reasons being:

1) It's a low turnout caucus, and so more likely to be dominated by "party regulars", which I guess works better for Cruz and Rubio as compared to states where Trump-mania will bring a bunch of new people to the polls.

2) Trump is stronger in the Northeast and South than he is in the Midwest and West, and all of the Super Tuesday states are in the Northeast and South except Minnesota and Alaska, so if he's going to underachieve somewhere, those two states would seem like leading possibilities.

Interestingly enough, it looks like Cruz, Rubio, and Trump are all ignoring the state, at least in terms of paid advertising.  All three candidates are doing all their paid advertising in the South (except a token amount by Rubio in Vermont).  But I'm assuming that the campaigns will still have caucus turnout operations running in MN, even if they're not advertising.

[Erc]

Any chance of a surprise performance here by Kasich?

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Minnesota is a terrible state for Trump. Everything about him runs counter to the political culture of the state. I suppose that one could easily point to Michelle Bachmann as an example of a right-wing figure in Minnesota that rejected "Minnesota nice" in favor of dogma but she was hardly popular in her district and paid heavily for her rhetoric; when Emmer replaced her, it was smooth sailing for him, even though he as views that are quite "extreme", because he's polite/staid.

There's quite a few genepool Republicans in Minnesota; whether they're farmers or retirees/olds settled around Rochester, they will not take a liking to Trump. As we've seen in Iowa, farmers are not particularly fond of him. Then there's the right-wing around Minneapolis that is very Evangelical/ideological and that ought to be resistant to Trump because they have their candidate.

I imagine that Cruz will win but I could see a Rubio victory as well or a Trump squeaker. I think it will be a tight three-way race, which should be fun for the lavenous one.