What The Heck Was The GOP Thinking To Let Ron Kind Go Unchallenged in 2016?

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Everyone thought Kind was safe and on top of that, it's still far too early to say whether the huge swing to the Republican party among Midwestern whites (especially WWC voters) is part of a 1) a long-term realignment, 2) a one cycle fluke, 3) a phenomenon which only occurred because Trump himself was on the ballot, or 4) some combination of 2 and 3.  We really won't know until after 2018 at the earliest and possibly not until after 2020.  One wild swing in a batsh!t crazy election cycle does not a realignment make. 

For example, I actually think Democrats are slightly favored to hold MN-1 (especially if Hagedorn is the Republican nominee), am pretty confident that Rod Blum will lose in 2018 (it might not even be close, tbh), and believe that Mike Bost is already in a pure toss-up race down in IL-12.  I could go on, but you get the idea.  Maybe 2016 was a realignment, but we don't know yet since it was just one data point.