Minnesota- Why can't the GOP get the job done there?

[Sol]

@ Al

The key issue you're missing is race. In Madison, Duluth and St. Paul, there is no racialized other to hate. In Toledo, Youngstown, Flint and Pontiac, there is a significant Black community that has prevented the erosion of the white Democratic vote.

I agree with you somewhat (albeit not on your examples- St. Paul is quite diverse, and Madison is more like Austin than Youngstown). It seems like race really plays a huge role in big multiethnic cities like NYC or Boston- think of places like Howard Beach.

[Indy Texas]

@ Al

The key issue you're missing is race. In Madison, Duluth and St. Paul, there is no racialized other to hate. In Toledo, Youngstown, Flint and Pontiac, there is a significant Black community that has prevented the erosion of the white Democratic vote.

If you want to see a full white working class collapse map, look at 2010. Hideous, ghastly results in every city and state. Democrats actually lost very few votes among the "creative class", they were just massacred amongst downscale whites.

Is that because they specifically disliked Democrats or because they were angry at the status quo/powers that be/incumbents, who happened to be Democrats? How well did Republicans do among the white working class in 2006, when they were the incumbent party with targets all over their backs?

[hopper]

@ Al

The key issue you're missing is race. In Madison, Duluth and St. Paul, there is no racialized other to hate. In Toledo, Youngstown, Flint and Pontiac, there is a significant Black community that has prevented the erosion of the white Democratic vote.

If you want to see a full white working class collapse map, look at 2010. Hideous, ghastly results in every city and state. Democrats actually lost very few votes among the "creative class", they were just massacred amongst downscale whites.

Is that because they specifically disliked Democrats or because they were angry at the status quo/powers that be/incumbents, who happened to be Democrats? How well did Republicans do among the white working class in 2006, when they were the incumbent party with targets all over their backs?

The Republicans won whites by 4%- 52-48 or 51-47% in 2006.

[Suburbia]

I don't know why. They should be competing here. Mitt Romney almost won it in 2012, before the Democrats and Bill Clinton made sure that it would stay Democratic. A Republican in 2016, COULD win if it's the right candidate. I don't know if Tim Pawlenty would have carried his own state if he were the nominee in 2012, or if he's the nominee in 2016.

[Sol]

@ Al

The key issue you're missing is race. In Madison, Duluth and St. Paul, there is no racialized other to hate. In Toledo, Youngstown, Flint and Pontiac, there is a significant Black community that has prevented the erosion of the white Democratic vote.

If you want to see a full white working class collapse map, look at 2010. Hideous, ghastly results in every city and state. Democrats actually lost very few votes among the "creative class", they were just massacred amongst downscale whites.

Is that because they specifically disliked Democrats or because they were angry at the status quo/powers that be/incumbents, who happened to be Democrats? How well did Republicans do among the white working class in 2006, when they were the incumbent party with targets all over their backs?

The Republicans won whites by 4%- 52-48 or 51-47% in 2006.

Although a lot of those Whites are conservative suburbanites.

[All Along The Watchtower]

How much has the Iron Range's economy changed, relative to other traditional working-class regions of the US? Are the unions still quite powerful? Can most of the people who live there trace their family history in the region back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries (when there were many radical labor and socialist movements in that area)?

[fartboy]

Typical light blue state, but somewhat purple when the GOP wins. It's like asking why the Democrats can't get it done in AZ. It would take an 8 point win for the GOP to win MN.

[sg0508]

The Democrats seem a lot stronger now in MN than they were say 5-10 years ago.  Democrats have been winning many key statewide races since 2006.

[Ban my account ffs!]

First of all:  The Democrats didn't just "put Farmer-Labor" in the name any more than the Republican party named itself the Grand Old Party.

The Farmer-Labor party was a socialist party made up largely of working class industrial laborers and farmers... two groups that the elites always tried to set against one another to keep them divided.

When farmers and laborers finally realized they could combine forces and win... they did.

It's why our Farmer-Labor governor threatened the legislature with martial law if they didn't increase relief (welfare) during the depression... saying that the militia would take far more than he was asking for right then.  And guess what?  The conservative legislature gave in.

The Farmer-Laborites espoused socialist policies, but within a capitalist market based framework.  And they did well by rightly saying to the Republicans "oh you might not like us... but you should see the guys in line behind us!" and so that's how they garnered power.

But by the late 1930s with the death of Floyd Olson, MN returned to its Republican roots.  Seeing this, one Hubert Horatio Humphrey, a lonely Democrat in a state where the Democrats were a useless 3rd party, offered to join forces with the Farmer-Laborites.  He could provide the national support and connectivity that the Democrats had... but marry it with the more left wing desires of the socialist Farmer-Laborites to provide the voting base.

This same process happened in North Dakota which is why North Dakota has the Republicans and the Dem-NPL party.  The Democrats in North Dakota joined forces with the non-partisan league.

And while Minnesotans were skeptical of Democrats considering their, shall we say, unfortunate views on segregation... they jumped into the boat when HHH demanded that the Democratic party throw off the shackles of racism and become the party of civil rights.  You know.. another thing oldiesfreak wouldn't understand.

As for the Iron Range:  They've remained DFL because nobody is moving there.  Some people stay there.  Others are born there and move away.  Nobody moves there.  There has been no significant injection of new blood into that area since basically WWII.

The areas on the fringes of the Iron Range that are growing are filling up with your well educated, granola greeny types who want to live in the woods.

But on "da Range" as they say, are communities that have been shedding people left and right for 60 years.  Where there were 100 people with pickaxes... now there is one guy overseeing the operation of self-driving enormous dump trucks.  And the guy makes $35/hour thanks to his union. 

So it's a matter of "what alternatives?"  The insular quality of the Iron Range community would shun any carpetbagger Republicans who might have a resonating message that has won over other working class whites... and the only local Republicans are crazy as hell.  So the DFL cleans up. 

And it's not as if that isn't perpetuating itself.  The Iron Range, in being loyal to the DFL for lack of alternatives, has naturally become more liberal on issues than they would have if the GOP was competitive.  It becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.

This is the guy they elected for a few decades to our legislature:


Tommy Rukavina fights the good fight and doesn't put up with Republican crap.

He retired.  Now they have Carly Melin


She also doesn't put up with Republican crap.  And she challenges the DFL from the left on a lot of issues.

[Simfan34]

How wrong would it be to ascribe the DFL's success in the Iron Range to the fact that it is populated by Scandinavians who vote similarly to rural voters in Scandinavia (i.e., voting for agrarians or social-democrats vs. voting for the DFL).