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: If national Democrats get complacent, he added, “it’s a false complacency, Minnesota is quite winnable.” Minnesota is a swing state
Every four years, Minnesota is typically written off as a solidly blue state, compared to the rest of the upper Midwest. There’s a reason for that; the last time Minnesota voted for a Republican presidential candidate, it was Richard Nixon in 1972. But there’s plenty of evidence to suggest the state is turning purple. 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.