Some personal news and then thoughts/questions for the community.
1) I got accepted to three of the nine law schools I applied to for Fall of 2025, including my Plan A. Five are still pending but I am ecstatic about it. This likely means I will remain in the Denver metro area, but I will see how the rest of them shake out.
2) How are you all planning to use the time before the midterms? Getting as many grants, and scholarships together as possible will be time-consuming, and then school itself but I do want to think about what I can do to improve the national situation. I'm currently brushing up on Spanish so I can be a more effective/useful volunteer, but I would love some additional ideas for what individuals can do to start working against our national nightmare and setting up for success before the 26 cycle really kicks off.
3) In 26 I will try to do some voter registration drives in the Spring-Summer of 26 at colleges or other targeted areas in Adams County since the collapse there is the primary reason Caraveo lost CO-08 by 0.8%. Then volunteer where I can for whoever the candidate is after the primary. I will probably still be a good 30-45 minute drive from CO-08 though but will see what I can do then.
After a two-week deep dive into Minnesota precinct data, here are my takeaways....
The Core Mostly Held For Harris--While Minnesota shifted three points to the right overall, that was less than the shift of the country at large. The primary reason is that the needle barely budged at all in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, be it the urban centers, the first-ring suburbs, or the second-ring suburbs. The vast majority of municipalities in the Twin Cities were within a percentage point for Harris compared to Biden four years ago. Even the third-ring exurbs largely didn't move much, and in some cases, got a bit bluer. Meanwhile, Minnesota's third largest city of Rochester has continued its sharp Democratic trendline from a decade ago.
Mixed Bag in the Outstate College Towns--Most of the regional centers in outstate Minnesota that remain blue are homes to colleges and universities, some of which have been struggling with enrollment. I anticipated the student body, particularly the males, were probably more conservative this year than four years ago. There was little indication of slippage in Duluth, Moorhead, Bemidji, St. Peter, or Northfield. There was clearer erosion of support compared to Biden in Winona and the badly battered St. Cloud whose state university has seen the heaviest enrollment declines. Meanwhile, the bottom continues to fall out in Morris in western Minnesota, home of another college suffering from steep enrollment declines, going from a 16-point Hillary win in 2016 to a 1-point Trump win in 2024. Crookston remains the most conservative university town in Minnesota but didn't accelerate its rightward trend nearly as much as Morris.
The Mankato Embarrassment--The most inexplicable underperformance of Minnesota's college towns came in Walz's hometown of Mankato, where Harris lost more that four points from Biden's 2020 margin. I'm not sure what's going on here. Perhaps a more conservative student body reflective of the general conservative trend in southern Minnesota, but the underperformance was clear in precinct after precinct, not limited to neighborhoods with high student populations. There was no hint of any hometown victory chant for Walz among his neighbors, and that was decidedly not the case in any of his previous Congressional or gubernatorial runs where he always did well.
Klobuchar Still Ran Ahead of the Presidential Ticket--There was considerable polling that hinted at Amy Klobuchar's bipartisan appeal having faded and that, despite having her weakest challenger yet by far, her victory would be far less impressive this time than her three previous campaigns. In the end, her margin was at least within shouting distance of what we'd seen from her in the past, even if her county map wasn't nearly as comprehensively blue. Even though she didn't do as well as she had in the past outstate, her overperformance of Harris was more dramatic in the rural areas. There were numerous communities that went more than 2-1 for Trump that still voted for Klobuchar. It seems reasonable to predict that some Minnesota communities that held out for Klobuchar this year may never again vote Democratic in my lifetime.
Angie Craig Kills It--One of the most pleasant surprises of the evening was Angie Craig's dominating double-digit victory over Joe Teirab, who was actually a pretty good GOP candidate. After a trio of modest victories in previous cycles, Craig's winning margin in the district was much closer to Klobuchar's than Harris's. She was only 400 votes short of winning Scott County.
Warning Signs Among Immigrant Populations--The Minnesota Star Tribune ran a story that documented a double-digit shift toward Trump in the three Minneapolis precincts with the highest numbers of Somali-Americans. Harris still dominated in these precincts, but any time you see double-digit shifts among any demographic group, it's a development worthy of concern. Shakopee, another Twin Cities suburb with a substantial Somali population, also shifted two points toward Trump. It isn't fully clear if the Somali shift is related to Gaza or social conservatism. The Star Tribune article hinted at a combination of both. Similarly, the precincts with the heaviest Hmong populations on the east side of St. Paul also shifted decisively toward Trump and the GOP generally. Unlike Minneapolis, St. Paul actually shifted a couple of points to the right, and most of the losses came in those Hmong precincts. As a result, for the first time in my lifetime, St. Paul was NOT the most Democratic town in Ramsey County! Suburban Falcon Heights was. It's harder to pin down by precinct data how the Hispanic, Hmong, and Somali vote trended elsewhere in the state because outside of the core cities, there aren't many precincts with majority concentrations of first or second-generation immigrant populations.
The Iron Range is Gone--The big realignment of Minnesota's previously dark blue mining towns that make up the Iron Range happened in 2016. Since then, it's been continued incremental slippage, and in 2024, only Chisholm, Eveleth, and the tiny town of McKinley stayed in the Harris column on the Range proper. Virginia, Mountain Iron, Biwabik, and Nashwauk all flipped to Trump this year, joining their neighbors who already flipped in 2016 or 2020. And the last state House seat held by a Democrat in the central Iron Range flipped handily to the GOP this year after the retirement of Dave Lislegard who only won by 2 points in 2022. The local realignment happened more quickly than I anticipated even after the 2016 bloodbath at the top of the ticket. Most interesting about the Iron Range collapse is that the Itasca County side of the Iron Range fell the hardest and the most quickly. Twenty years ago, as one of numerous examples, nearly all of the towns on the Itasca County side of the Range went stronger for John Kerry than nearly all of the towns on the St. Louis County side. Fast forward to 2024 and the vast majority of the Range towns in St. Louis County held out comfortably for Amy Klobuchar, but except for Nashwauk and Keewatin, all of the Range towns in Itasca County didn't even vote for her!
Canoers Go The Other Direction--The inverse to the Iron Range story is that the only two Minnesota counties that went stronger for Harris than Biden were Lake and Cook counties in the state's Arrowhead region. It's a safe bet that their position on copper-nickel mining conflicts with that of the neighboring Iron Range. In fact, the town best known for being the gateway to the Boundary Waters, and which has one foot in the mining culture of the Iron Range, is Ely in northeastern St. Louis County. Ely went for Biden four years ago and voted for Harris this year, as did a couple of its neighboring townships. From a numerical standpoint, you'd rather have the Iron Range in your column than the Boundary Waters corridor but there's at least some degree of divergence going on here where votes lost in one area are being made up for elsewhere. If state Senator Grant Hauschild has any hope of being re-elected in Tom Bakk's old district in 2026, he'd better hope these trends continue.
The Center of Minnesota Is It's Darkest Shade of Red--From the Dakota borders to the Wisconsin border, central Minnesota has become the biggest disaster zone for Democrats. But it's the patch of territory in the dead center of the state where Republicans have recently begun to run up margins more reminiscent of central Nebraska than anything previously seen in Minnesota. Most of these counties are populated by German Catholics and are ancestrally Democratic, albeit VERY conservative Democrats. Outside of Collin Peterson, Democrats in federal races haven't fared well here for most of my lifetime, but as recently as the 2000s, these counties voted Democratic in statewide downballot races and sent Democrats like Dallas Sams, Mary Ellen Otremba, Larry Hosch, and Al Doty to the Legislature. More recently, the area was the home district of Republican Senate Leader Paul Gazelka. What's driving their surge to the right above and beyond the rest of outstate Minnesota? It's probably equal parts social conservatism, tied to their particularly strident Catholic diocese, and backlash to the considerable immigration settlements, be it the Somali influx to St. Cloud or the migrants at the dairy farms and food processing plants in the area.
Some personal news and then thoughts/questions for the community.
1) I got accepted to three of the nine law schools I applied to for Fall of 2025, including my Plan A. Five are still pending but I am ecstatic about it. This likely means I will remain in the Denver metro area, but I will see how the rest of them shake out.
2) How are you all planning to use the time before the midterms? Getting as many grants, and scholarships together as possible will be time-consuming, and then school itself but I do want to think about what I can do to improve the national situation. I'm currently brushing up on Spanish so I can be a more effective/useful volunteer, but I would love some additional ideas for what individuals can do to start working against our national nightmare and setting up for success before the 26 cycle really kicks off.
3) In 26 I will try to do some voter registration drives in the Spring-Summer of 26 at colleges or other targeted areas in Adams County since the collapse there is the primary reason Caraveo lost CO-08 by 0.8%. Then volunteer where I can for whoever the candidate is after the primary. I will probably still be a good 30-45 minute drive from CO-08 though but will see what I can do then.
After a two-week deep dive into Minnesota precinct data, here are my takeaways....
The Core Mostly Held For Harris--While Minnesota shifted three points to the right overall, that was less than the shift of the country at large. The primary reason is that the needle barely budged at all in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, be it the urban centers, the first-ring suburbs, or the second-ring suburbs. The vast majority of municipalities in the Twin Cities were within a percentage point for Harris compared to Biden four years ago. Even the third-ring exurbs largely didn't move much, and in some cases, got a bit bluer. Meanwhile, Minnesota's third largest city of Rochester has continued its sharp Democratic trendline from a decade ago.
Mixed Bag in the Outstate College Towns--Most of the regional centers in outstate Minnesota that remain blue are homes to colleges and universities, some of which have been struggling with enrollment. I anticipated the student body, particularly the males, were probably more conservative this year than four years ago. There was little indication of slippage in Duluth, Moorhead, Bemidji, St. Peter, or Northfield. There was clearer erosion of support compared to Biden in Winona and the badly battered St. Cloud whose state university has seen the heaviest enrollment declines. Meanwhile, the bottom continues to fall out in Morris in western Minnesota, home of another college suffering from steep enrollment declines, going from a 16-point Hillary win in 2016 to a 1-point Trump win in 2024. Crookston remains the most conservative university town in Minnesota but didn't accelerate its rightward trend nearly as much as Morris.
The Mankato Embarrassment--The most inexplicable underperformance of Minnesota's college towns came in Walz's hometown of Mankato, where Harris lost more that four points from Biden's 2020 margin. I'm not sure what's going on here. Perhaps a more conservative student body reflective of the general conservative trend in southern Minnesota, but the underperformance was clear in precinct after precinct, not limited to neighborhoods with high student populations. There was no hint of any hometown victory chant for Walz among his neighbors, and that was decidedly not the case in any of his previous Congressional or gubernatorial runs where he always did well.
Klobuchar Still Ran Ahead of the Presidential Ticket--There was considerable polling that hinted at Amy Klobuchar's bipartisan appeal having faded and that, despite having her weakest challenger yet by far, her victory would be far less impressive this time than her three previous campaigns. In the end, her margin was at least within shouting distance of what we'd seen from her in the past, even if her county map wasn't nearly as comprehensively blue. Even though she didn't do as well as she had in the past outstate, her overperformance of Harris was more dramatic in the rural areas. There were numerous communities that went more than 2-1 for Trump that still voted for Klobuchar. It seems reasonable to predict that some Minnesota communities that held out for Klobuchar this year may never again vote Democratic in my lifetime.
Angie Craig Kills It--One of the most pleasant surprises of the evening was Angie Craig's dominating double-digit victory over Joe Teirab, who was actually a pretty good GOP candidate. After a trio of modest victories in previous cycles, Craig's winning margin in the district was much closer to Klobuchar's than Harris's. She was only 400 votes short of winning Scott County.
Warning Signs Among Immigrant Populations--The Minnesota Star Tribune ran a story that documented a double-digit shift toward Trump in the three Minneapolis precincts with the highest numbers of Somali-Americans. Harris still dominated in these precincts, but any time you see double-digit shifts among any demographic group, it's a development worthy of concern. Shakopee, another Twin Cities suburb with a substantial Somali population, also shifted two points toward Trump. It isn't fully clear if the Somali shift is related to Gaza or social conservatism. The Star Tribune article hinted at a combination of both. Similarly, the precincts with the heaviest Hmong populations on the east side of St. Paul also shifted decisively toward Trump and the GOP generally. Unlike Minneapolis, St. Paul actually shifted a couple of points to the right, and most of the losses came in those Hmong precincts. As a result, for the first time in my lifetime, St. Paul was NOT the most Democratic town in Ramsey County! Suburban Falcon Heights was. It's harder to pin down by precinct data how the Hispanic, Hmong, and Somali vote trended elsewhere in the state because outside of the core cities, there aren't many precincts with majority concentrations of first or second-generation immigrant populations.
The Iron Range is Gone--The big realignment of Minnesota's previously dark blue mining towns that make up the Iron Range happened in 2016. Since then, it's been continued incremental slippage, and in 2024, only Chisholm, Eveleth, and the tiny town of McKinley stayed in the Harris column on the Range proper. Virginia, Mountain Iron, Biwabik, and Nashwauk all flipped to Trump this year, joining their neighbors who already flipped in 2016 or 2020. And the last state House seat held by a Democrat in the central Iron Range flipped handily to the GOP this year after the retirement of Dave Lislegard who only won by 2 points in 2022. The local realignment happened more quickly than I anticipated even after the 2016 bloodbath at the top of the ticket. Most interesting about the Iron Range collapse is that the Itasca County side of the Iron Range fell the hardest and the most quickly. Twenty years ago, as one of numerous examples, nearly all of the towns on the Itasca County side of the Range went stronger for John Kerry than nearly all of the towns on the St. Louis County side. Fast forward to 2024 and the vast majority of the Range towns in St. Louis County held out comfortably for Amy Klobuchar, but except for Nashwauk and Keewatin, all of the Range towns in Itasca County didn't even vote for her!
Canoers Go The Other Direction--The inverse to the Iron Range story is that the only two Minnesota counties that went stronger for Harris than Biden were Lake and Cook counties in the state's Arrowhead region. It's a safe bet that their position on copper-nickel mining conflicts with that of the neighboring Iron Range. In fact, the town best known for being the gateway to the Boundary Waters, and which has one foot in the mining culture of the Iron Range, is Ely in northeastern St. Louis County. Ely went for Biden four years ago and voted for Harris this year, as did a couple of its neighboring townships. From a numerical standpoint, you'd rather have the Iron Range in your column than the Boundary Waters corridor but there's at least some degree of divergence going on here where votes lost in one area are being made up for elsewhere. If state Senator Grant Hauschild has any hope of being re-elected in Tom Bakk's old district in 2026, he'd better hope these trends continue.
The Center of Minnesota Is It's Darkest Shade of Red--From the Dakota borders to the Wisconsin border, central Minnesota has become the biggest disaster zone for Democrats. But it's the patch of territory in the dead center of the state where Republicans have recently begun to run up margins more reminiscent of central Nebraska than anything previously seen in Minnesota. Most of these counties are populated by German Catholics and are ancestrally Democratic, albeit VERY conservative Democrats. Outside of Collin Peterson, Democrats in federal races haven't fared well here for most of my lifetime, but as recently as the 2000s, these counties voted Democratic in statewide downballot races and sent Democrats like Dallas Sams, Mary Ellen Otremba, Larry Hosch, and Al Doty to the Legislature. More recently, the area was the home district of Republican Senate Leader Paul Gazelka. What's driving their surge to the right above and beyond the rest of outstate Minnesota? It's probably equal parts social conservatism, tied to their particularly strident Catholic diocese, and backlash to the considerable immigration settlements, be it the Somali influx to St. Cloud or the migrants at the dairy farms and food processing plants in the area.