How did Minnesota stay blue

[sg0508]

The irony of all is that MN is one of the whitest states in America.

Northern MN also has a big german population, which is typically Democratic too.

[Young Conservative]

Minnesota remains less elastic than other midwestern states. Remember, it has the longest running Democratic presidential vote of ANY state. Eventually, I believe it will vote for Republicans eventually though.

[MT Treasurer]

It's the richest non coastal state.

Neat stat.  So, why did it stay blue, though?  LOL.

He answered the question pretty well:

Under $50K (29%): Trump 45%, Clinton 45%
$50K-$100K (34%): Trump 48%, Clinton 45%
$100K or more (37%): Clinton 52%, Trump 41%

edition.cnn.com/election/results/exit-polls/minnesota/president

[morgankingsley]

If Trump wins a second term, I expect that Minnesota will be one state from Democrat to Republican

[Arlen Specter]

The point about the 3rd Congressional District moving further left is a very important one to remember, and is one of the key reasons Clinton was able to eke out a victory in the state, but another important and thus far unmentioned point is this: Evan McMullin was on the ballot in Minnesota, as opposed to the other typically-Democrat Midwestern states, and received 53,076 votes there (Clinton won the state by 44,765). Also, it's important to remember Trump came in 3rd in the Republican Primary in this state, and the state's Republican Party is historically more moderate than not.

[Keep cool-idge]

The point about the 3rd Congressional District moving further left is a very important one to remember, and is one of the key reasons Clinton was able to eke out a victory in the state, but another important and thus far unmentioned point is this: Evan McMullin was on the ballot in Minnesota, as opposed to the other typically-Democrat Midwestern states, and received 53,076 votes there (Clinton won the state by 44,765). Also, it's important to remember Trump came in 3rd in the Republican Primary in this state, and the state's Republican Party is historically more moderate than not.

Finally someone is bringing up mcmuffin that is the reason trump lost if the polls had shown trump losing by only 1 point he would have won by the same margin that he did in Michigan the mcmuffin voters would have gone trump or if he wasn't on the ballot at all trump would have won.

[I’m not Stu]

The point about the 3rd Congressional District moving further left is a very important one to remember, and is one of the key reasons Clinton was able to eke out a victory in the state, but another important and thus far unmentioned point is this: Evan McMullin was on the ballot in Minnesota, as opposed to the other typically-Democrat Midwestern states, and received 53,076 votes there (Clinton won the state by 44,765). Also, it's important to remember Trump came in 3rd in the Republican Primary in this state, and the state's Republican Party is historically more moderate than not.

Finally someone is bringing up mcmuffin that is the reason trump lost if the polls had shown trump losing by only 1 point he would have won by the same margin that he did in Michigan the mcmuffin voters would have gone trump or if he wasn't on the ballot at all trump would have won.

McMullin voters are likely never-Trumpers who would have stayed home. They probably wouldn't have voted for Trump. McMullin explicitly ran as an anti-Trump conservative candidate.

[barnabee]

Minnesota is a "lucky" state. It's been voting Democrat since 1976, but not by overwhelming margins. Granted, Trump has been closest to flipping it since Ronald Reagan in 1984. I think Minnesota will eventually go Republican, then go solid red by 2032.

Minnesota is not going to go red. Trump had a perfect window to win and still did not win Minnesota. As a resident, here is what I can say.

1. Minnesota is wealthy. Whole parts of the upscale suburbs that were essentially Rockefeller Republicans through the post-war era have turned Democratic. Minnesota has a lot of old and new money that essentially all Democratic now.

2. We are the destination for a 7-state area of rural kids who are seeking a trendy city life. As places on the coast get more expensive, this will increase further. These people are almost uniformly college educated and liberal.

3. We have had some losses due to the loss of small farmers and due to working-class drift from the party. However, there are still good chunks of rural Minnesota that are liberal due to union history, strong farming, etc. Some areas are even going blue because they are so scenic and being taken over by more wealthy retirees.

4. The DFL is great at retail politics and signalling on issues as diverse as equal rights and prescription drugs. Our governor, Dayton, is kind of awkward but a nice guy. He is a WASP who's family founded Target, but I have seen him at events talking to old farmers, Native tribes, urban elites, and he is very warm and connects with people.

5. I feel Trump missed here partially because of we had already elected a non-establishment, non-politician (Jesse Ventura) as Governor, and we learned our lesson that that is not a good thing. The rest of the country- took them 6 months to learn with Trump.

[RINO Tom]

Minnesota is a "lucky" state. It's been voting Democrat since 1976, but not by overwhelming margins. Granted, Trump has been closest to flipping it since Ronald Reagan in 1984. I think Minnesota will eventually go Republican, then go solid red by 2032.

Minnesota is not going to go red. Trump had a perfect window to win and still did not win Minnesota. As a resident, here is what I can say.

1. Minnesota is wealthy. Whole parts of the upscale suburbs that were essentially Rockefeller Republicans through the post-war era have turned Democratic. Minnesota has a lot of old and new money that essentially all Democratic now.

2. We are the destination for a 7-state area of rural kids who are seeking a trendy city life. As places on the coast get more expensive, this will increase further. These people are almost uniformly college educated and liberal.

3. We have had some losses due to the loss of small farmers and due to working-class drift from the party. However, there are still good chunks of rural Minnesota that are liberal due to union history, strong farming, etc. Some areas are even going blue because they are so scenic and being taken over by more wealthy retirees.

4. The DFL is great at retail politics and signalling on issues as diverse as equal rights and prescription drugs. Our governor, Dayton, is kind of awkward but a nice guy. He is a WASP who's family founded Target, but I have seen him at events talking to old farmers, Native tribes, urban elites, and he is very warm and connects with people.

5. I feel Trump missed here partially because of we had already elected a non-establishment, non-politician (Jesse Ventura) as Governor, and we learned our lesson that that is not a good thing. The rest of the country- took them 6 months to learn with Trump.

Nice, some room for optimism for the GOP (though your strange post seems to suggest that wealthy retirees are some type of liberal demographic).

[barnabee]

[/quote]

Nice, some room for optimism for the GOP (though your strange post seems to suggest that wealthy retirees are some type of liberal demographic).
[/quote]

Haven't you heard brother man?

Millionaires on the coasts and in Minnesota are trending liberal. It is embarrassing to be a Republican nowadays if you are educated and a multimillionaire. Your friends think you are a pariah.

[barnabee]

The irony of all is that MN is one of the whitest states in America.

Northern MN also has a big german population, which is typically Democratic too.

If I could correct you, northern Minnesota (outside of the range) has mostly Scandinavian/ New England roots, similar to Minneapolis historically.

These are the people that have liberalism as a heritage and a way of life. They believe in equality, excellent schools, and opportunity for all.

The German parts of Minnesota are actually more Republican, similar to Wisconsin, but not in a uniform fashion.

Minnesota's greatness and its political heritage is mostly borne from our Scandinavian heritage mixed with progressive New Englanders who moved here after the Civil War.

[RINO Tom]

Nice, some room for optimism for the GOP (though your strange post seems to suggest that wealthy retirees are some type of liberal demographic).
[/quote]

Haven't you heard brother man?

Millionaires on the coasts and in Minnesota are trending liberal. It is embarrassing to be a Republican nowadays if you are educated and a multimillionaire. Your friends think you are a pariah.
[/quote]

Hilarious to include those two together.  And whatever you say, hot shot.

[Beet]

It's the richest non coastal state.

Neat stat.  So, why did it stay blue, though?  LOL.

He answered the question pretty well:

Under $50K (29%): Trump 45%, Clinton 45%
$50K-$100K (34%): Trump 48%, Clinton 45%
$100K or more (37%): Clinton 52%, Trump 41%

edition.cnn.com/election/results/exit-polls/minnesota/president

Not only that, Minnesota has the highest percentage of people with bachelor's degrees in the Midwest. Clinton won all but two states (Utah and Kansas) with a higher percentage of bachelor's degrees than the national average.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_educational_attainment

[RINO Tom]

It's the richest non coastal state.

Neat stat.  So, why did it stay blue, though?  LOL.

He answered the question pretty well:

Under $50K (29%): Trump 45%, Clinton 45%
$50K-$100K (34%): Trump 48%, Clinton 45%
$100K or more (37%): Clinton 52%, Trump 41%

edition.cnn.com/election/results/exit-polls/minnesota/president

Don't be obtuse, friend.  That is clearly the exception that proves the rule in both the national and other state exit polls.  He said that as if MN being "rich" was an obvious indicator of it being Democratic, and the coincidence that its wealthy voters voted Democratic (again, against the national norm) is not a logical justification for assuming MN would be Democratic due to its wealth...?

[barnabee]

Educational attainment is very important.

In Minnesota we have incomes, which are mostly driven by educational attainment.

We have excellent schools, which allow kids to go to good college, and make high incomes.

A virtuous circle, if you will.

So, again, I repeat, it is embarrassing in Minnesota to be wealthy and highly educated and rail against taxes that fund excellent public schools.

As well as rail against "The Gays" or whatever is fashionable.

Because we are a community in Minnesota, and diversity and our way of life are the things that gave us wealth in the first place.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The irony of all is that MN is one of the whitest states in America.

Minnesota is about 17% non-white. That's not even close to being true, especially when compared to the western state and northern New England.

Northern MN also has a big german population

Uh, no? Northern Minnesota is more heavily Scandinavian and Eastern European than the state overall. The most heavily German parts are central Minnesota and parts of southern.

which is typically Democratic too.

Nope! Rural German areas are usually the most Republican in the state.

But anyway, one thing I noticed in the maps is that Minnesota is the only Midwestern state besides Illinois where Trump actually utterly collapsed in some traditionally Republican or swing areas. Look at the Hennepin County swing map and compare to 2012 and it'll make more sense.

[hopper]

Minnesota is a "lucky" state. It's been voting Democrat since 1976, but not by overwhelming margins. Granted, Trump has been closest to flipping it since Ronald Reagan in 1984. I think Minnesota will eventually go Republican, then go solid red by 2032.

Nah MN is a teaser for Republicans.

[Adam Griffin]

The point about the 3rd Congressional District moving further left is a very important one to remember, and is one of the key reasons Clinton was able to eke out a victory in the state, but another important and thus far unmentioned point is this: Evan McMullin was on the ballot in Minnesota, as opposed to the other typically-Democrat Midwestern states, and received 53,076 votes there (Clinton won the state by 44,765). Also, it's important to remember Trump came in 3rd in the Republican Primary in this state, and the state's Republican Party is historically more moderate than not.

It doesn't really work that way.

First of all, you'd have to assume that McMullin voters were uniformly likely right-wing and likely Trump voters in the absence of said choice. While I'm sure a huge contingent of McMullin voters may have been default GOP voters in other circumstances, there's also quite a bit of evidence that shows third-party defections in the upper Midwest (centered around the Dakotas) were just as much fueled by Obama voters as Trump voters. It's arguably the one part of the country where the Left may have lost as many or more voters because of third-party choices (especially to Johnson, which wasn't mentioned in your comparison, but we'll exclude Johnson's effect for simplicity's sake).

Next, you'd have to assume that all (or practically all) of these voters would have came out to vote and cast votes in the presidential contest. Some would have stayed home and some would have just left the ballot blank. Maybe not that many, but it doesn't have to be many, as I'll show below.

Finally, Trump would have needed to win almost all of those 53k McMullin voters (including any who stayed home or who left ballot blank) to flip the state.

If every single McMullin voter did in fact show up and did break for one of the two parties - with Trump winning 80% and Clinton getting 20% - Hillary still wins MN by 12,919 votes.

Using the above scenario but increasing Trump's vote share to 90% among them still leads to Hillary winning by 2,305 votes.

If just 10% of McMullin voters stayed home/didn't vote and Trump won 95% of those who did vote, Clinton still wins by 1,773 votes.

There's almost no reasonable scenario where McMullin voters would have flipped the state in favor of Trump when considering margins and when considering who/why they were voting for McMullin in the first place, and that's of course still ignoring that we could just as easily say "Clinton would have won anyway if you deduct favorable third-party votes from other candidates and give them to her".

[Deblano]

IIRC Minnesota is noticably more unionized than its neighbors in the Midwest.

[Lord Admirale]

Evan McMullin.

[America's Sweetheart ❤/𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕭𝖔𝖔𝖙𝖞 𝖂𝖆𝖗𝖗𝖎𝖔𝖗]

Evan McMullin.

I really don't think so. as others have pointed out, McMullin ran explicitly as an Anti-Trump conservative alternative. most of his voters were #NeverTrumpers who would have either voted for Johnson, HRC,  or just stayed home if he had not been an option.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

The counter trend in MN-03 for one, which Clinton won by 10 points. It was previously a close district.

This. If Trump kept it as close as Romney did (didn't he lose it by only half a point or something) I think it would have been enough to flip the state.

That is not true.  He would have lost Minnesota in that case by about .3% or .4%!

[hopper]

The irony of all is that MN is one of the whitest states in America.

Minnesota is about 17% non-white. That's not even close to being true, especially when compared to the western state and northern New England.

Northern MN also has a big german population

Uh, no? Northern Minnesota is more heavily Scandinavian and Eastern European than the state overall. The most heavily German parts are central Minnesota and parts of southern.

which is typically Democratic too.

Nope! Rural German areas are usually the most Republican in the state.

But anyway, one thing I noticed in the maps is that Minnesota is the only Midwestern state besides Illinois where Trump actually utterly collapsed in some traditionally Republican or swing areas. Look at the Hennepin County swing map and compare to 2012 and it'll make more sense.

All Republican Votes were lost to Third-Party Candidates and not to the D's on the Presidential Level in 2016 from 2012 figures though.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

IIRC Minnesota is noticably more unionized than its neighbors in the Midwest.

That's because we don't have a right to work law.

[Pennsylvania Deplorable]

It stayed blue because it was more liberal to start with and because Trump spent less time there than in other Midwestern states. It still swung towards Trump by a margin comparable to Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. The democrat party is also much more dominant at a state level, whereas the republicans have built stronger get out to vote machines in other states (especially Wisconsin with Walker's 3 tough wins in four years). McMullen may have peeled away enough votes to help HRC win, the influx of nonwhites in recent years could have made the twin cities even more democrat, rich college educated whites in the suburbs may have been turned off by Trump's personality, or most likely all of the above.

Minnesota has been quietly trending to the right for years and will continue to do so. It's worth noting that Hillary did worse with voters under 30 than with seniors. If the studies are true and Gen Z whites are further right than any post WW2 generation was at their age (relative to the country as a whole), I don't see how Minnesota doesn't eventually flip as part of a permanent realignment (dems gain in the sun belt due to demographics, republicans in the rust belt because the democrats gave up their old working class white base and college educated whites will be more strongly GOP without Trump's personal unfavorables dragging down their score)