Minnesota state leg: 2002-2014

[they don't love you like i love you]

Inspired by this post I made pointing out how the House majorities basically reversed in 4 years.

First the State House.

2002:


2004:


2006:


2008:


2010:


2012:


2014:

[they don't love you like i love you]

State Senate. No election in 2004.

2002:


2006:


2010:


2012:

[Conan]

Quite impressive.

[ilikeverin]

Ah, the pleasing way the big red blob that is Minneapolis/St. Paul is spreading.  It has already engulfed my Senate seat

[Josh/Devilman88]

how did you get a state house map?

[they don't love you like i love you]

Something I found kind of surprising is the Senate results in the district where my crush is from (that one in the central/north part that contains that fairly small sort of square shaped district. It's a relatively populated area for that region). The incumbent barely won in 2002. Later he was outed, but then said none of his positions had changed (he said he'd still vote in favor of the gay marriage ban amendment because he believed the people should be allowed to vote on the issue. Never came up for a Senate vote anyway). In 2006 he faced a primary challenger, but then won, and won the general by a fairly wide margin, much higher than 2002.

I wonder if some liberals voted for him out of sympathy of how he was treated (the Minnesota branch of Family Research Council or Focus on the Family or one of those theocrat groups issued some statement supporting his primary challenger about how we must hold our lawmakers to a high moral standard or some crap like that.)

[jimrtex]

how did you get a state house map?

The Census Bureau has mapping data for legislative districts.  You can then use a mapping program to create a map.  Many states also have district maps, check on the legislature web site.

[they don't love you like i love you]

There was an error in each of the State Senate maps. Fixed.

[True Democrat]

Who was the independent in the State Senate?

[they don't love you like i love you]

It was actually a member of the Independence Party (Ventura's party) and was previously the Republican incumbent who lost the convention endorsement. She agreed not to run for the Republican nomination in that case, but ran under the IP ticket, and won a 3-way race.

[Ban my account ffs!]

My state house seat switch to the DFL in '04 and my senate seat switched in '06.  The DFLer in the state house race got 65% in '06 and is very popular. 

[they don't love you like i love you]

I just found this again. Lots of interesting patterns.

Look at northern Minnesota. And southeast too.

[Hash]

I can't see the 2004 and 2006 maps.

[Brittain33]

I can't see the 2004 and 2006 maps.

Here you go. Blue spots are Scott and Carver County.

[Cubby]

Was 2002 a huge improvement for the GOP from 2000, or just a decent-sized increase? The first House map seems strongly GOP by Minnesota standards (at least, that I know of).

I blame Jesse Ventura's outspoken anger towards the Democrats after Paul Wellstone's funeral for helping Coleman to win that year.

Are there any differences between Washington, Dakota and Anoka Counties? Are any of them more or less socially or economically liberal than the others? From what I can tell, it seems that Carver, Sherburne and Wright are the most Republican and/or conservative counties in the Metro area, but they are much smaller than the first three.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Was 2002 a huge improvement for the GOP from 2000, or just a decent-sized increase? The first House map seems strongly GOP by Minnesota standards (at least, that I know of).

More the latter. The GOP took the House in 1998 and increased their numbers every year since then until 2004 when the reversal began. Redistricting benefited them in many ways too (even though the drawing was done by a court they got lucky in most of the close races.

Are there any differences between Washington, Dakota and Anoka Counties? Are any of them more or less socially or economically liberal than the others?

Yes. Anoka is more blue collar and has some populist tendencies though those have largely faded as the yuppies took over. Washington is different as it actually has some yuppie-ish areas that vote DFL, unfortunately those are concentrated in the south (and thus outside of Michele Bachmann's district.) Dakota has a large mixture, you got blue collar heavily DFL areas in the north (like the _______ St. Pauls), some yuppie but still DFL areas (like the town I work in), and the fast growing GOP suburbs on the outer ring. And the bottom part of it is rather rural but also Republican.

Washington and Dakota are probably on a whole socially liberal. Anoka has too much central Minnesota type areas to be so, and the Democratic strengths in parts relies on blue collar traditions.

From what I can tell, it seems that Carver, Sherburne and Wright are the most Republican and/or conservative counties in the Metro area, but they are much smaller than the first three.

That's because they're really way outer exurban counties. The weird thing is how their shift has been so relatively soon. In 1996 Clinton carried every metro county except Carver. In 1990 as I posted earlier, the DFL Governor won Sherburne and Wright counties while losing Hennepin! Those two have always been generally conservative, but like most conservative rural counties willing to consider voting for a Democrat. Then came the ultra-partisan GOP commuters and that changed, and the GOP base is now strong enough to vote for Mark Kennedy. Carver has always been Republican since the beginning of time and all the exurbanization has done there is give the GOP a more solid floor (though ironically at the same time it might've helped the DFL in the sense of solidifying and raising their floor as well.)

[they don't love you like i love you]

2008:



Some notable races:

-That ugly light blue dot surrounded by red is 41A, where moderate Republican Rod Erdhart lost the convention endorsement to a far right-winger (the breaking issue was basically his vote which helped successfully override Pawlenty's veto on the gas tax.). He then ran on the "moderate independent" ticket, and narrowly beat the Democrat for second, but also probably cost us the seat, which went to the Republican with only 36%.

-My Rep for the first half of the year, Phyllis Kahn in 59B, received "only" about 67% of the vote in a district Obama took 79% in. The Republican took 24% to McCain's 18% with the IP candidate taking the rest, so there clearly was an anti-Kahn vote. Kahn's standard nuttiness (she's known for things like seriously proposing lowering the voting age to 12.) came more to light this year, so that's the reason why, of course Kahn will never lose (Hell she's been around since 1976), but she might underperform for quite a bit longer.

-The district just to the south of me, 61B elected the Democrat (a black man by the way, replacing the only black woman ever serve in the Minnesota legislature) in an open seat with "only" about 60%. The Green Party candidate (a Muslim Arab woman) took about 30% and the Republican candidate (a 20something white woman) less than 10%. 9.29% to be exact. Coleman was the Republican who ran best in the district. He got 10.87%, with Barkely taking 9.51%. And the district is only 28.9% black, and plurality white (at 37.6%).

-Not interesting election-wise, but the winning Democrat for the open seat in 67A, northeast St. Paul is actually named Tim Mahoney.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Updated.

[ilikeverin]

And yet somehow 43B stayed Democratic and Bonoff kept her seat

[they don't love you like i love you]

The most surprising hold was 47A (though it was very close). That was a McCain district and Emmer fell just short of 50%. And the incumbent isn't even really that conservative even if she is an evangelical Christian.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Something I just noticed, there was a very odd hard swing against the DFL in the inner suburbs, much worse than further out. Luckily this was mostly in places so Democratic they didn't flip but 57A did and that was a real shocker. Katie Sieben also almost went down in the senate seat 57, no one saw that one coming. Chaudhary's Senate seat was held, but 52% is pretty anemic for that seat (though the complete nutjob running on the IP ticket was able to make the margin not that close.) And Kate Knuth came close too. The swings in the middle suburb seats were far less, but as they were less Dem most fell.

Very odd. Though these places are kind of working class, they're not exactly socially conservative and don't strike me as Tea Party strongholds. Dayton's performance was kind of anemic too in these areas, in Kate Knuth's seat (50B), he did basically statewide numbers, McCollum failed to break 50%, and the Republican for the State Senate seat won narrowly.

Here's a likely possibility: Independents (who lean heavily DFL in those areas) mostly stayed home, while Republicans had a huge turnout.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

it looks like the northern part of the state is less Democratic now than in 2002, while the southern part is less Republican.

[they don't love you like i love you]

it looks like the northern part of the state is less Democratic now than in 2002, while the southern part is less Republican.

Not really. Northwestern Minnesota is very volatile and swings all over the place. There was a steady DFL trend in Rochester but otherwise most of the pickups were the DFL picking up seats the GOP should've never held in the first place (St. Peter and Austin have Republican state reps?) or getting lucky in Owatonna.

That Albert Lea seat is another one that shouldn't have flipped, but did narrowly and was close in 2008 due to the DFL nominating a candidate from Mower County instead of Albert Lea. Doh. Any Albert Lea Democrat will win it back in 2012.

[Torie]

Something I just noticed, there was a very odd hard swing against the DFL in the inner suburbs, much worse than further out. Luckily this was mostly in places so Democratic they didn't flip but 57A did and that was a real shocker. Katie Sieben also almost went down in the senate seat 57, no one saw that one coming. Chaudhary's Senate seat was held, but 52% is pretty anemic for that seat (though the complete nutjob running on the IP ticket was able to make the margin not that close.) And Kate Knuth came close too. The swings in the middle suburb seats were far less, but as they were less Dem most fell.

Very odd. Though these places are kind of working class, they're not exactly socially conservative and don't strike me as Tea Party strongholds. Dayton's performance was kind of anemic too in these areas, in Kate Knuth's seat (50B), he did basically statewide numbers, McCollum failed to break 50%, and the Republican for the State Senate seat won narrowly.

Here's a likely possibility: Independents (who lean heavily DFL in those areas) mostly stayed home, while Republicans had a huge turnout.

It happened to Dingell too with his more down market white voters as opposed to his university and state college precincts in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. The swing against him was just massive outside the higher ed zone. Ditto Levin in his more white blue collar zones, particularly places like Warren.  He only carried his Dem share of Macomb (about 60% of the total county) against a nothing opponent by 53%, a massive drop from before, while suffering just a nick in the balance of his district (much more heavily Jewish and black).

[they don't love you like i love you]

These places aren't working-class in the way that Dingell's seat is. They just lack both the very educated white collar professionals of the middle and outer suburbs and "intellectuals" and recently graduated hipster types of the urban cores. Most of them still have around a quarter of the population with a college degree.