ST. PAULO, Minnesota – Former President Donald Trump will head to Minnesota on a day off after his secret trial for a Republican fundraiser Friday night in a traditionally Democratic state that he boasts he can hold in November.
Trump will headline the Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Reagan Dinner, which coincides with the party’s state convention, after attending his son Barron’s high school graduation in Florida.
Trump will use part of the judge’s graduation day to campaign in Minnesota, a state he argues he can win in a November rematch with President Joe Biden. No Republican presidential candidate has won Minnesota since Richard Nixon in 1972, but Trump came close to flipping the state in 2016, when he trailed Hillary Clinton by 1.5 percentage points.
Trump returned to Minnesota several times in 2020, when Biden beat him by more than 7 points.
“I think this is something Trump wants to do. He believes this is a state he can win. We believe that is also the case,” David Hann, chairman of the Minnesota Republican Party, said in an interview.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota, a Biden ally, said Trump’s campaign is “grasping at straws” if it thinks he can win the state.
“The Biden campaign will work hard for every vote,” Smith said in an interview. “We will interact with voters across the state. But I think Minnesota voters will choose President Biden.”
Trump will appear at Friday’s dinner after attending Barron Trump’s graduation from the private Oxbridge Academy in West Palm Beach, Florida. The former president had long complained that Judge Juan M. Merchan would not let him attend graduation before Merchan agreed not to hold court on Friday.
Hann is co-hosting Friday’s dinner along with Trump’s state campaign chairman, House Majority Leader Tom Emmer, who represents a central Minnesota district. Hann said Emmer was instrumental in bringing the former president to Minnesota.
The dinner coincides with the party’s state convention. Tickets started at $500, going up to $100,000 for a VIP table for 10 with three photo opportunities with Trump. Hann declined to say how much money he hopes to raise, but anticipates a full house of about 1,400 people.
All of the money from dinner tickets will go to the state party, Hann said, though he added that some of the money from photo opportunities could go to Trump’s campaign.
Experts are divided on whether Minnesota will actually be competitive this time around, given its history and the Democratic Party’s strong ground game in the state. But Hann said there is “great dissatisfaction with President Biden” in the state, noting that nearly 19% of Democratic voters in the Super Tuesday primary marked their votes as “uncommitted.” This was due, at least in part, to a protest movement over Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, which has spread across several states.
In an interview broadcast Wednesday on KSTP-TV of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Trump said his speech would focus on economic issues. And he repeated a false claim he made in March on St. Cloud’s KNSI Radio that he thought he actually won Minnesota in 2020, even though there is no evidence that there were any serious irregularities in the state.
“We think we have a good chance in Minnesota,” Trump told KSTP. “We have great friendships there. We’ve done a lot for the industry. We’ve done a lot for everything in Minnesota. We’ve worked hard in Minnesota. Tom Emmer is very involved.”
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