No state screams “blue wall” louder than Minnesota.
It hasn’t gone for a Republican since Richard Nixon in 1972. Democrats say former President Donald Trump doesn’t stand a chance there.
And yet President Joe Biden’s campaign is pushing out top-shelf local Democratic surrogates — Gov. Tim Walz and Sen. Tina Smith — to counter Trump’s appearance at the Lincoln Reagan Dinner hosted by the Minnesota Republican Party on Friday night. First lady Jill Biden also campaigned in the state last month.
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All of the attention suggests that both campaigns see Minnesota as an emerging battleground in a race that is likely to be decided in a relative handful of states. Democrats readily concede that a Trump victory there would spell disaster for them across the country. But those in the party who know the state best insist talk of Trump flipping it in the fall is overblown.
Walz noted in an interview that Biden was closer to winning Texas in 2020 (5.6-point margin) than Trump was to winning Minnesota (7.1-point margin). That was after Trump famously said he was “never coming back” to the state if he lost.
Still, Trump’s loss in Minnesota by less than 2 points in 2016 has made it an alluring target for the GOP. At an event May 4 in Palm Beach, Florida, top Trump advisers told donors that in a six-way trial in Minnesota — including four independent candidates — Trump and Biden were tied at 40%, while Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stood at 9%.
On an electoral battlefield in which few states are truly in play, both campaigns are looking for opportunities to win — or at least give strong enough head fakes to make the opposition spend precious money to play defense. Even with that in mind, Trump campaign officials are insistent and consistent in their optimism about Minnesota. Senior adviser Chris LaCivita called the state “a real opportunity” in a recent interview.
But the Biden campaign notes it already has staffing and organization in Minnesota, while Trump has had virtually no presence there this cycle.
“Fundamentally, what we’re doing in Minnesota and Virginia is … not taking any state or any vote for granted,” Dan Kanninen, battleground states director for the Biden campaign, said at a recent briefing for reporters.
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