Biden did better in Minnesota than Trump did in Texas

[forsythvoter]

I don't know what question we're trying to answer here, but I was expecting Trump to win Texas by 3 and MN by 5, so it wasn't a surprise that MN voted more D than TX voted R. However, I was expecting MN to vote D+5 assuming a D+6/+7 environment. That MN voted D+7 in a D+4.5 national environment is actually pretty surprising to me.

As for what I got wrong on reflection - I actually had thought Dems were pretty maxed in MSP metro around Hillary's numbers (I think many others here did too), but it looks like the Dem ceiling in MSP suburbs especially is quite a bit higher than I would have thought. I definitely didn't see Biden coming within mid single digits in Carver and Scott counties, or cracking 70% in Hennepin.

[forsythvoter]

If the GOP can get that 60% of the vote to 70%, they could flip MN, and Ds probably don't have enough room in the Twin Cities Metro to make it up.

If rural MN swung 10 point more Republican than how it actually voted this cycle, it would still not be sufficient enough to flip the state: Minnesota minus the seven county metro area is 45% of the state's population, so a 10 point swing in rural MN would translate into a 4.5 point statewide swing, and 7.1 - 4.5 = Biden would still have won by 2.6 points (still larger than the margin he actually got in either WI or PA).

For the GOP to break even with the Democrats, they would need to swing the rural vote by 7.1/.45 = 15.8 points. This is an illustration of the fact that the Republicans definitively can flip Minnesota, but that it's unlikely to become a red-leaning state like Iowa or Ohio anytime soon.

Of course, this is all assuming that the Twin Cities area does not swing further to the left (which could be a reasonable assumption with the right GOP candidate) or decrease in portion to the total statewide vote (which is completely nonsensical).

Increasing your vote share by 10% would be increasing your margin by 20 (assuming no 3rd parties for simplicity). Try Again.

Oh yes, a 20 point swing would definitively exceed the 16 points needed to flip the state, but the margin of victory would be less than 2 points.

I think the other issue here is that MSP metro is growing over time. So, if MSP metro starts making up 50% of more of the statewide vote, then the equation essentially is can Rs get a non-MSP margin that's larger than the MSP metro. What makes this challenging is that you do still have the college towns, Duluth and Rochester mixed in with the rurals and they still lean D.

[forsythvoter]

I did some number crunching and here is how MN broke down this election. 59% of the state's vote (~1.9M) came from the 8 counties that include Hennepin / Ramsey + the counties that touch these two counties. 41% (1.3M) votes came from all other counties in the state.

Overall, in the 8 county region, Biden got 62.6% of the two party vote, while in the rest of the state, he got 40.8%. Trump would have needed to get 68% of the Greater MN vote, given the MSP results.

Based on these numbers, it definitely looks like the R path through MN runs through the suburbs and not rural MN. The numbers just aren't there in the rural parts of the state.

Notably, if you took out all the suburbs (i.e., if the state only contained the Twin Cities themselves and Greater MN), Biden would have still won the state with 50.8% (862K - 835K). This likely means that a R win would involve actually winning the combined suburban vote, not just cutting the margins.


                      Trump     Biden        Biden%  Total Votes
Twin Cities           54,584    325,389    85.6%     379,973
Inner Suburbs     228,765   418,854    64.7%     647,619
Middle Suburbs   288,304   336,213     53.8%     624,517
Outer Suburbs    131,854     99,244     42.9%     231,098
Total MSP Met 703,507 1,179,700    62.6%  1,883,207
Greater MN         780,558    537,377    40.8%  1,317,935
Total MN      1,484,065 1,717,077    53.6%   3,201,142
 
 

Twin Cities = Minneapolis & St. Paul Cities
Inner Suburbs = Suburban Hennpin and Ramsey
Middle Suburbs = Dakota, Washington, Anoka
Outer Suburbs = Scott, Carver, Wright
Greater MN = Everything Else

[forsythvoter]

I did some number crunching and here is how MN broke down this election. 69% of the state's vote (~1.9M) came from the 8 counties that include Hennepin / Ramsey + the counties that touch these two counties. 31% (855k) votes came from all other counties in the state.

Overall, in the 8 county region, Biden got 62.6% of the two party vote, while in the rest of the state, he got 40.8%. Trump would have needed to get 77% of the Greater MN vote, given the MSP results.

Based on these numbers, it definitely looks like the R path through MN runs through the suburbs and not rural MN. The numbers just aren't there in the rural parts of the state.

Notably, if you took out all the suburbs (i.e., if the state only contained the Twin Cities themselves and Greater MN), Biden would have still won the state with 50.8% (862K - 835K). This likely means that a R win would involve actually winning the combined suburban vote, not just cutting the margins.


                       Trump     Biden        Biden%  Total Votes
Twin Cities           54,584    325,389    85.6%     379,973
Inner Suburbs     228,765   418,854    64.7%     647,619
Middle Suburbs   288,304   336,213     53.8%     624,517
Outer Suburbs    131,854     99,244     42.9%     231,098
Total MSP Met 703,507 1,179,700    62.6%  1,883,207
Greater MN         780,558    537,377    40.8%     855,615
Total MN      1,484,065 1,717,077    53.6%  2,738,822
 

Twin Cities = Minneapolis & St. Paul Cities
Inner Suburbs = Suburban Hennpin and Ramsey
Middle Suburbs = Dakota, Washington, Anoka
Outer Suburbs = Scott, Carver, Wright
Greater MN = Everything Else

You hvae the Total Vote count in Greater MN and Total MN wrong

You're right, thanks for catching! Fixed now.