I rarely post diaries, but I feel compelled to right now so that I can get this out on the record and so I can link to it whenever some know-it-all from one of the coasts gives credibility to the wildly stupid assertion proferred by some that Minnesota is trending Republican. This has been an issue that I have had with some posters on dKos for a while and I hate having to break it down all over again every time I see it. I hope you have the patience to read it all because it is rather long, but I hope you do because I put a lot of work into it.
What evidence is there that this is happening? There are two examples that are almost universally cited as evidence of trending red. First, the closeness of the 2000 presidential contest. Second, the GOP rout in the 2002 elections, culminating in the defeat of Fritz Mondale by slimeball Norm Coleman for Minnesota's tragically vacated Senate seat (may Paul rest in peace) and the ascendancy of the most conservative Governor in Minnesota history, Tim Pawlenty.
This is the only evidence that those who purport the trending of my state to the forces of darkness have. On the surface it certainly looks like said assertion could have some credibility. But it doesn't when you look at the bigger picture.
First of all, the 2000 presidential election. This is the easiest argument to refute. Gore took Minnesota for granted (and Wisconsin, for that matter). In our wildly independent yet reformist liberal leaning political climate that both Minnesota and Wisconsin share this allowed Nader to flourish. In pre-election polls, Gore's lead had narrowed to 2 points at its lowest with Nader polling as high as 6 or 7 percent in some polls. Late in the campaign Gore realized something had to be done and came here, but Nader still polled 4 percent on election day, so that reduced what would have been at the least a 5 point victory to 2, assuming that not all Nader voters would have voted for Gore.
Second, the 2002 elections. Using this election as a cornerstone of an argument about future trends is ridiculous, not to mention politically ignorant from an academic political science point of view. The best way to evaluate performance of a party on a statewide level is to look at statewide races. There were five statewide races in 2002: Senate, Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State and Auditor. The GOP won four of them. Why? Well, because all of those races except one were patently out of the ordinary, and the factors that made them out of the ordinary favored Republicans.
The Governor's race was four way, with three of the candidates having a plausible shot at winning the office. Roger Moe, Tim Penny and Ken Pentel, DFL, Independence and Green parties, respectively, were all in the on the ballot and in the debates and all represented a liberal, center-left or progressive program. All advocated tax increases mixed with spending cuts in key areas to solve the budget deficit. Tim Pawlenty, on the other hand, had a no tax increase pledge. In a state trending Republican you would expect the guy who said "I'm not going to raise any taxes" to absolutely clean up, right? Technically, he did by margin of victory, beating Moe by 8 points. However, he only got 44% of the vote, while the three other candidates that all advocated TAX INCREASES received 55.89% of the vote, a decisive majority. If Minnesota were trending Republican, a decisive majority of voters would not vote for candidates supporting tax increases. It would be the most abnormal Republican state ever.
Just to tie up the loose ends here, the races for Auditor and Secretary of State were both the same story as the gubernatorial race: four way, with a Green and Independence Party candidate killing the Democrat and the Republicans polling well under 50%. Have any idea how difficult it is the beat an incumbent Secretary of State? Have any idea how embarrassed you'd have to be to be an incumbent ceremonial official like Secretary of State is in Minnesota and poll under 50%?
As for the Senate seat, it is pretty simple to explain. Norm Coleman had been campaigning for months and he was a known quantity to voters from that Senate campaign and his campaign for Governor in 1998. Mondale, on the other hand, had exactly five days to campaign and hadn't been on a ballot in Minnesota since 1984, 18 years ago. In order to have been eligible to vote that last time Mondale was on a Minnesota ballot someone would have to be 36 today. Any idea how many voters out there have no conception of who he is and what he stands for because they are simply too young? I tried to find a stat, but was unsuccessful. But it has to be huge.
The only statewide race that was anywhere near normal for 2002 was Attorney General. There was only one third party challeger who received 4% of the vote. And hey, what a coincidence that was the race that we won and it was the only statewide race where the winner won a majority instead of a mere plurality.
The overriding point to this is that if we can eliminate the influence of third parties, the DFL can do much better because as far as the issues go the people are on our side. Notice one other thing about the election results that I linked: the GOP receives anywhere between 40% and 49% percent of the vote in all of those races. The votes that they are getting are just the Republican base (about 40% of registered voters) and a handful of swing voters. Democrats and the overwhelming majority of swing voters lined up either behind the Democrat or a third party candidate, except in the Senate race. Without the Independence Party, we would have been talking about a Democratic sweep, except for the Senate seat, in a Republican year. Once again, that would be very out of the ordinary for a state trending Republican. And in this entire 2002 analysis I completely left out the effect of the way the Wellstone Memorial was spun by the Republicans.
As it is plain to see, Minnesota is not trending Republican. The fact that Coleman did so well is an indicator that some work needs to be put into keeping it on our side. However, the idea that any expenditure on the Republican side less than absolutely massive can make it red is preposterous.
