ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – Former president donald trumpTrump’s planned campaign visit to Minnesota on Friday will mark his return to a traditionally Democratic state that he has long argued he could hold.
Trump will pause his silent money trial in New York to speak at the Minnesota Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Reagan fundraising dinner. Tickets start at US$500 and can go up to US$100,000 for a VIP table for 10 people with three photo opportunities with Trump. The dinner coincides with the party’s state convention.
Trump’s new state campaign chairman is House Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota, which supports Trump, although the former president and his allies were instrumental blocking Emmer’s attempt to become a speaker last fall.
It’s unclear whether Trump’s campaign will receive any of the money raised. The campaign did not respond to an emailed request for comment, and Emmer declined an interview request. His dinner co-host, Minnesota Republican Party Chairman David Hann, also did not respond.
Trump came close to winning Minnesota and its 10 electoral votes in 2016, when he came within 1.5 percentage points of Hillary Clinton in a state that no Republican presidential candidate has won since Richard Nixon in 1972. returned to Minnesota several times in 2020, but Democrat Joe Biden beat him by more than 7 percentage points when he sought a second term.
Still, Trump continues to insist he can win Minnesota. He made a similar pride on Saturday at a rally in reliably Democratic New Jersey.
At a private donor retreat in Florida on May 4, Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita discussed the campaign’s plans for expand your electoral map in Virginia and Minnesota, based on the Trump team’s growing optimism that both states are within reach.
“We have a real opportunity to expand the map here,” LaCivita told the Associated Press. “Biden’s campaign spent tens of millions of dollars on television ads and his vaunted ground game. And they have nothing to show for it.”
Trump seemed to falsely assert in an interview shortly before Super Tuesday that he actually beat Minnesota in 2020.
“Well, I thought we won last time, to be honest,” he told KNSI Radio in St. “And I think we won.”
There is no evidence that there were serious irregularities in the 2020 elections in Minnesota. A handful of challenges to results failed.
Trump said it didn’t make sense to him that no Republican presidential candidate had won the state since 1972. “It’s not, in my opinion, that blue,” he said.
He later promised, “We’re going to make a big change in Minnesota, I promise.”
Whether this is a misdirection play or a serious effort to win remains to be seen. Minnesota has a long history of producing liberal icons, such as vice presidents Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale and Senator Paul Wellstone, but it was also the state that shocked the world by electing former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura as governor in 1998.
Experts are divided on whether Minnesota will actually be competitive this time around. Some say the economy remains a vulnerability for Biden, despite low unemployment and rising consumer confidence. The state’s unemployment rate is 2.7%, well below the national unemployment rate of 3.8%, thanks to strong employment and workforce growthwith wage growth outpacing inflation, according to state officials.
University of Minnesota political scientist Larry Jacobs said that while 2020 was a good year for Biden in Minnesota, he’s not sure the president will be as well positioned this time around.
“It looks to me like Minnesota is in play,” he said. “And if Minnesota is in play, Trump’s investment of time and money makes sense.”
It’s not a good year to be a starter, Jacobs said. And although there has been a significant improvement in the economy, inflation continues to hurt the president.
“That could force Biden to shift money from states he thinks he could take from Trump,” he said, “and he could always correct course in the fall.”
But Steve Schier, professor emeritus of political science at Carleton College, said the voting record in Minnesota makes him skeptical, although he believes the race could be close there.
“We’ve seen this movie before. In 2020 and 2016, it looked like a Republican had a chance to win Minnesota, and that didn’t happen,” Schier said.
Ken Martin, chairman of what is officially called the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, said the state has been a battleground for some time. He thinks it’s more of a purple state than a deep blue state.
“It’s not surprising that Donald Trump thinks he has a chance here,” Martin said. “But in a rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, I think he will lose.”
Although Republican strength has grown in rural Minnesota in recent years, this has been offset by Democratic strength in urban areas and the shift of suburban voters toward Democrats, which accelerated after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade. While it’s true that no Republican has won statewide office in Minnesota since 2006, when Tim Pawlenty was reelected governor, it’s also true that Democrats hold only a narrow majority in the Legislature, and the state’s congressional delegation is split 4-4.
The Trump campaign has not had a visible presence in Minnesota this cycle, while the Biden campaign has recruited experienced operatives to lead the statewide effort. The president’s team in recent months has also sent several surrogates, including the first lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff.
Biden should be able to leverage the well-oiled turnout and fundraising machine of the state Democratic Party. In contrast, the Minnesota Republican Party has struggled for years with debt, leadership turnover and factional disputes.
Minnesota Democrats had a big year in 2022, capitalizing on voter concerns about abortion rights to re-elect Gov. Tim Walz and flip control of the state Senate to win the trifecta of the governor’s office and both legislative chambers for the first once in eight years. Democrats now plan to run in comprehensive agenda they enacted. Both parties have a presidential advantage in electoral contests where control of the state House and a flippable seat in the US House are at stake.
Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, who enjoys cross-party support, is expected to easily win a fourth term against a little known and little financed Republican Party challenger Joe Frasier.
Joshua Allan, a 36-year-old voter from the Minneapolis suburb of Oak Grove who works in the construction industry, said the presidential race could be competitive. During a visit to the state Capitol for a demonstration against a proposed state amendment on equal rights which was organized by conservative religious and anti-abortion groups, Allan rattled off a list of economic and social issues that he thinks could swing the state toward Trump. He said he would not vote for Biden at all, citing his record and age, 81 years old.
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