Transcript
A (0:00)
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.
B (0:04)
All right, welcome in to the second hour of Clay and Buck. We were talking about whether it's conceivable, realistic that Minnesota could go red, perhaps even in the next presidential election. Our numbers guy, Ryan Graduski, he is the podcast host of It's a Numbers Game on the Clay and Buck Network. He's going to join us for a couple of minutes. Ryan, educate us. Break this down, because when you look at the macro numbers, the last election was pretty close. 2016 was very close for on the presidential ballot. And it seems like this should be considered a purple state. But as Clay pointed out, we just basically lose every election in Minnesota stretching back for decades. What's going on?
C (0:46)
Yeah, you know, they have a long history of organized labor. That's what kind of. That's one of the things that kept Reagan from winning the state, although he didn't campaign there because he didn't want to insult Mondale, that he would lose every state. The thing about Minnesota, unlike other places like Wisconsin, even, especially in the south, like Texas, is that the rural counties are not maxed out. So Trump doesn't win like 90% or even 80% in most of the rural counties, especially in the south and in the Iron Range. The Iron Range is where we have a lot of minerals. There's a huge labor portion there. Democrats still win parts of the rural counties in the northern Iron Range and perform very well in the southern counties. And as we have won more support from rural areas, we've been losing support from the suburbs. So when Tim Pawlenty won there in 2002 by a point for governor, what he was able to do was even though he lost a lot of the rural union vote, he was able to maximize and win the suburbs. We've lost the suburbs even though we've gained some support from the rural vote. So we're closer than we've ever really been. We're certainly closer than we were in the 90s or in the 2000s in Minnesota. But unfortunately, we've always managed to come up short. Minnesota also has a huge independent streak in it where they have, you know, they elected Jesse Ventura governor very famously, and they've always had independents win 5, 6%. It's really why Hillary almost lost the state was because so many people flocked to the Green Party and the Libertarians.
D (2:11)
So it's been since 1972 in the presidential election that Republicans have won in Minnesota. Do you buy that there are candidates either in the governor's race or the Senate race that's upcoming. There is no incumbent. I believe Tina Smith, if I'm not mistaken, has stepped down and said that she's not going to be running going forward. Is this winnable in 2026? When you look at the numbers, if the right candidate ran, it's very difficult.
