Trump Loss in 2020? MN Experts Say “Don’t Count On It”

On the surface, it would seem like Donald Trump’s presidency is a done deal. In a news cycle dominated by the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, liberals across the aisle are salivating over the perceived demise of the president’s second term. But the Trump Campaign is as confident as ever, and it’s due in large part to their fight to win a single state that could make a Democratic path to winning the White House increasingly difficult: Minnesota.

President Trump’s agenda has been popular in the conservative counties of Minnesota outside of the Minneapolis area, while Democrats have a solid grasp on their strongholds like Dakota, Ramsey, and Hennepin County — home of the 5th Congressional District represented by Rep. Ilhan Omar. And President Trump has made no secret that he wishes to use the congresswoman as the center of his bid to flip Minnesota from Democratic certainty to a Republican pick-up.

“There probably isn’t a better person to rile up Trump’s base than Rep. Omar,” said Dr. Michael Tesler, associate professor of political science at UC Irvine. He said that while many point to how conservatives accused President Obama of being a Muslim as a means to rile up uneducated white voters, they were stymied by Obama being a moderate Christian. “For Omar, the fact that she is actually a Muslim and has very progressive views is something that is easy to target for a base with very negative views on both those things.”

Democratic candidates have relied on the strength of large populations in reliably liberal urban centers to carry them to wide-vote margins that offset the conservative votes in districts outside of the cities. In Minnesota, this strategy has contributed to the longest running streak for a state to vote for a Democrat in consecutive presidential elections, with the last Republican to win the state in a general election being Richard Nixon in the blowout 1972 election. (New York voted for Reagan in 1980, California for Bush in 1992).

The sense of certainty Democrats had in securing Minnesota all changed in the 2016 election, as the Clinton campaign infamously ignored the Upper Midwest states that carried Democrats in the Obama campaigns, resulting in losses in Wisconsin and Michigan that contributed to her stunning defeat. Minnesota was a close race as well, with Trump coming within only 44,000 votes in a state he only visited once during the totality of his campaign (he never even left the airport).

“One of the reasons why Trump was so competitive in Minnesota was the suburbs.” Michael Minta said, an associate professor of political science at the University of Minnesota. He explained to me the impact that the Trump Campaign’s message and impact had on many voters throughout the state. 

On election night, Donald Trump won 78 of Minnesota’s 87 counties, and the nine counties that Clinton did win was the lowest number of counties ever recorded for a statewide winner.

That small margin of victory is part of the worrying electoral math for Democratic strategists. President Obama won Minnesota by 300,000 votes in 2008, but lost a third of those voters in his re-election campaign in 2012. With Clinton’s poor performance in 2016, the Trump Campaign is pushing hard to invest in the state’s changing electoral demographic, one where conservative midwestern voters’ anxiety about race play right into Trump’s core message.

“I think this is a hard point for progressives to understand,” says Larry Jacobs, a professor of Public Policy at the University of Minnesota, and director at the Center for the Study of Politics and Government. “But the reality in many parts of Minnesota, outside of Minneapolis, is that greater diversity is something that generates anxiety about change — it’s associated with a possible loss of jobs, possible loss of shared community, and we see this anxiety cropping up in lots of different ways around the state where there is a real pushback.”

These tensions make Minnesota perfect for Trump’s battle with Rep. Ilhan Omar, who he has consistently bashed on Twitter through racially-charged attacks and continuous taunts (including the ‘send her back!’ chants screamed by a rally crowd this summer). It’s another example of Trump’s emphasis on the racial and cultural, rather than focusing solely on the political — a battlefield that Democrats are wary will stray from their focus on healthcare and an economy that they claim is not delivering results to lower and middle-class families.

“Trump’s focus on race and ethnicity is pumping up these cultural resentments against a changing America, whereas Democrats have been running in Minnesota on exclusively economic campaigns.” Jacobs explained. “They talk about expanding access to health care, they talk about promoting Minnesota businesses – if the political battle is on those economic issues it plays well for Democrats, but if the playing field shifts, the cultural issues create a different frame for the election.”

Ken Martin, chair of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party and vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, is more than aware of the racial and cultural tensions that the Trump Campaign is using to try and flip his state red. But he believes that there’s a lesson to be learned by what happened in 2016 that made the strategy so successful to begin with.

“It is disgusting that Republicans are just sitting idly by and allowing this to happen.” Martin said. “But we played right into it in 2016. Voters here saw the Democratic Party standing up and fighting for ‘other’ groups, they saw our party talking about issues that impacted ‘other’ communities, but they didn’t see our party standing up and fighting for them.”

“We have a responsibility to call out Trump’s racism and divisive language and actions every time he engages in it.” Martin continued. “But we cannot live in a space where that’s all we’re doing. We can’t live in a space where we’re only talking about his rhetoric and nothing else.”

Even with Trump’s rhetoric, Republicans are optimistic that they can win a policy-based argument with Minnesota voters too, outside of a framework focused on racial and cultural tensions. Ben Golnik, former executive director of the Minnesota Republican Party and regional campaign manager for John McCain, believes Republicans don’t need to extend far past the facts.

“The numbers show that the economy is strong, unemployment numbers are low – Minnesotans are feeling the benefits of that.” Golnik said. “I think those things are going to be a winning message in the suburban areas, and that’s ultimately where I think the race for president will be decided.”

“And I think voters outside of the Metro area are scratching their heads when looking at the Democratic debates.” Golnik continued. “You can look at the list of things that most of these candidates have come out supporting: universal medicare, free college or forgiving college debt, reparations, decriminalizing illegal entry into the country, free healthcare for illegal immigrants – even criticizing beloved President Obama.” Golnik believes it’s clear that Midwesterners are questioning the party’s gradual shift further to the left — a shift that he believes could play well for Republicans in 2020.

When I asked Ken Martin on the importance of Minnesota in this upcoming election, he didn’t mince any words. “Minnesota is going to be ground zero in many ways for the Trump Campaign and they’re putting a lot of resources here.” He told me the Trump Campaign has already opened several offices around the state, while outspending the DFL in digital almost four to one.

Martin understands that Minnesota is crucial for any Democratic nominee that faces off against Trump, and meeting him on a strictly racial and cultural front takes Democrats right off their message and right into his hands.

“People need to understand that if he flips Minnesota in 2020 — it’s game-set-match for us.”