Title: What the Minneapolis protests could mean for Minnesota’s politics - Vox
Headings: The political implications of the Minneapolis protests for Minnesota, explained
The political implications of the Minneapolis protests for Minnesota, explained
Minnesota barely stayed blue in 2016. If there’s a backlash to protests, could it turn red?
Minnesota is a swing state
The swing voters to watch are suburban women
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Content: Minnesota doesn’t have political party registration, meaning there aren’t precise statistics of how many Republicans and how many Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor members (the state’s Democratic Party) there are. But the results of the last presidential election suggests Trump has considerable appeal in the state. Control of the state legislature is also divided, with Republicans narrowly controlling the state Senate and the DFL controlling the state House. In 2016, Trump was just 44,593 votes shy of beating Clinton. Whereas Obama had won 42 of Minnesota’s 87 counties in 2008 and 28 of them in 2012, Clinton won just 9 in 2016. Clinton eked out a win relying on the most populous, blue areas of the state around Minneapolis and St. Paul, but staring at the 2016 Minnesota electoral map was like staring at a sea of red. There are a few factors to help explain this shift. Minnesota is historically a very white, protestant Christian state that has diversified rapidly in the last few years as immigrants from Somalia, Cambodia, and Latin American countries have settled there. Politically, the state can be divided into the blue areas around the Twin Cities, and a more purple area around the northern Iron Range that was historically Democratic and union-heavy but has trended red in recent years. There’s also the southern part of the state that is reliably Republican, but is also diversifying in some cities where immigrants work at meatpacking plants like Hormel in Austin, Minnesota.