THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: The Most Interesting Race In Minnesota In 2024?

With less than two months to go, most media political

attention is on the presidential and high profile U.S.

Senate and House races. But it is a national election

cycle, and numerous other state and local races are

taking place, too.

A few of these other races have outsized importance

because they not only impact their own districts, but also

will determine bigger outcomes.

One such race is the special state senate contest in

Minnesota’s suburban District 45. While all of Minnesota’s

state house seats are on the ballot this November, none

of its state senate seats are up for election. That is,

with one exception. The state Democratic Party (DFL)

had a one-seat majority in the state senate (34-33), that 

with its control of the state house and the governorship,

gave them effective control (sometimes called a trifecta)

of the executive and legislative branches, as well as the

sole power ro appoint state judges.

However, the state’s Third District Congressman Dean

Phillips ran a maverick race for president this year,

contrary to the wishes of his party’s establishment, and

when he lost in the primaries, he decided to retire from

politics and not run for re-election. This created an

unexpected open congressional seat this November.

One of the DFLers who decided to run for the open

seat was State Senator Kelly Morrison. She resigned

her state senate seat to campaign for Congress, and

she eventually won the DFL nomination in the recent

primary.

Her resignation left the state senate tied between the

DFL and the state Republican Party. A special election

was set for this November to fill the vacancy. S.D. 45

elected Morrison over her GOP opponent 56% to

44% two years ago in a favorable DFL cycle and no

presidential election. In a presidential cycle, and 

with notable backlash to DFL policies outstate and in

the suburbs, and with so much at stake, this race is

likely to be competitive.

Businesswoman Kathleen Fowkes won the Republican

nomination in the primary just held, The governorship 

is not on the ballot in 2024, and Republicans face an

uphill battle to win a majority in the state house.

On the other hand, the GOP needs to win only this

one state senate race to take control of that body,

and have a brake on what conservatives consider to

be a recent outpouring of radical legislation and

policies.

Former state legislator Ann Johnson Stewart won

the DFL nomination in her party’s recent primary.

DFLers. of course, are highly motivated to keep the

seat, and maintain their control of state government.

Minnesota, in recent years, has been a reliably blue

(DFL) state, but the party’s winning margins have 

narrowed recently as GOP (red state) voters, especially 

in rural and suburban areas, have increasingly 

opposed the DFL agenda.

Polls indicate that the presidential race is narrowing

in Minnesota —- although  the Democrat’s nominee

has won the state in every election since 1976.

The race for the open state senate seat might be

the most interesting Minnesota race to watch on 

November 5th.

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Copyright (c) 2024 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved. 

THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: And Now, The Hand-To-Hand Political Combat

The bouncing political ball period of the 2024 cycle

of the national election campaign is now over, and

the concluding period of grueling hand-to-hand

combat for voters has begun.

Both presidential campaigns had polling bounces

preceding, during, and just after their conventions.

provoked by traumatic events, including a serious

assassination attempt, and the sudden withdrawal

of a presumptive presidential nominee.

So much about this presidential election cycle has

been unprecedented, and even now continues to

go in uncharted political territory, that most

attempts to confidently predict outcomes are just

guesses in the dark.

For some time, public polling of voters has become

less and less accurate, especially in the extended

period before the final campaign season from

September to November. Just as systematic bias

has overtaken the establishment media, a similar

bias has seemingly corrupted public polling. Almost

all the raw data of voter polls is adjusted by the

pollsters subjectively to fit their personal expectations

of who will actually vote, so it is quite easy to distort,

either intentionally or unintentionally any poll result.

This includes guessing party and gender turnout.

There is also considerable evidence that the party

affiliations of many voter base groups is changing,

even as we have seen the Democratic Party go

from being a mulri-ethnic working class party to

becoming a party of affluent, highly educated

progressive voters, and the Republican Party go

from being a party of well-to-do elites to becoming

a party of blue collar voters with traditionalist values.

The Democrats’ base of black, Hispanic and Jewish

voters is eroding, and Republicans have been losing

suburban women, business executives and many

college  educated voters in their base.

Only former President Donald Trump is already

well-known to voters. Kamala Harris, J.D, Vance and

Tim Walz are largely unknown. This makes TV debates

and political advertising more significant than usual as

the contestants try to define and characterize opponents

to their advantage.

In spite of being well-known to voters, Mr. Trump,

following the attempt on his life, has the opportunity to

enhance his public image as he has done in his

behavior after being shot, his demeanor at the GOP

convention, his new-found self discipline in the

debate he had with Mr. Biden and with his hands-off

attitude to his party’s nominees for the U.S. Senate this

cycle. His recent action, to repair his long-standing

feud with the Republican governor of Georgia, is his

latest effort to improve his image with voters who

share his politics but have been turned off by his verbal

political style.

In the end. however, all of the strategies to employ

rhetoric, image and personal attack in this cycle, will

almost certainly be outweighed by how the key group

of undecided, independent and wavering voters of

both parties feel about their economic well-being and

their personal security in both their own communities

and in a world of military and economic threats which

only seem to increase.

Realizing that many public polls are inaccurate or

corrupted, that most media is biased, and that much

of what is reported as fact is not true or only partly

true, voters face serious obstacles in deciding who 

to vote for in 2024, The good news is that the U.S.

voter much more often than not, has done what’s best

for the country in election cycles past. With so much

at stake, we can only hope they will do so again on

Election Day, 2024.

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Copyright (c) 2024 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.

 

THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: "Walz-ing Kamala"

The account of "Walz-ing Kamala" is not likely

to become a national ballad as “Waltzing Matilda”

did in Australia, but it will be, in the short term, a

curious and complicated story.

The naming of the largely unknown (outside

Minnesota) Governor Tim Walz to be the

running mate of Kamala Harris, the 2024

presumptive presidential nominee for the

Democrats, was a late-developing surprise.

But then, almost every aspect of this

national election cycle has gone into some

kind of unchartered territory..

Waltz first appeared on the political scene about

20 years ago when he ran for Congress in the

very purple First District —- a mostly rural

southern part of the state. A former Army

National Guard NCO,  high school teacher

and coach, he ran as a moderate Democrat in

the district which had been represented by

figures of both parties.

After brief and indistinct terms in Congress,

Walz was elected governor as a Democrat 

(DFL) in 2018 and 2022, all the while proposing

policies and legislation further and further to

the progressive left, the same direction the

voter base (most of whom lived in the urban

Twin Cities) was going. During his first term,

he imposed a Draconian pandemic lockdown of 

tthe state’’s residents.

He lost much rural and small town support

from voters between 2018 and 2022, but won

re-election with the mammoth GOTV machine

of the DFL in the Twin Cities. A weakened and

ineffective state Republican Party could not

defeat him in 2022, and the DFL carried not 

only all statewide offices, but took control of 

both houses of the state legislature.This

political trifecta has put in place many new

regulations, taxes and fees, and laws which

have turned most of rural and small town

Minnesotans, small businesspersons,

conservatives and independents into a growing

political opposition.

Nevertheless, Walz’s selection as his party’s

national vice president has been greeted

with much enthusiasm among DFL voters,

many of whom had become discouraged in

the period leading up to President Joe Biden

stepping down from his certain re-nomination

for president in this year’s campaign.

Minnesota is a usually safe state for

Democrats in presidential elections, but until

Joe Biden stepped down, polls were indicating

the state was in play this cycle As soon as

Biden stepped aside, however, polls indicated

the state’s 10 electoral votes would go to the

Democrats once again.

Since Governor Shapiro of Pennsylvania,

Senator Kelly of Arizona or Governor Beshear of

Kentucky are from states where the GOP

ticket now leads in the polls and a vice president

nominee of the Democrats might help reverse

this—- many political strategists and pundits wonder

why Tim Walz, from a state already safe for the

Democrats, was chosen, especially also that his 

support from rural and small town voters has 

evaporated.

But the same strategists and pundits also

wondered why Republican nominee Donald

Trump chose J.D. Vance, and not Marco Rubio.

Minnesota establishment media, long a source

of pro-DFL bias, predictably hype the Walz

local-boy-makes-good euphoria, and many of

the controversies about Walz’s past, now

being discussed nationally, simply do not appear

in urban Minnesota print and broadcast media.

Republicans in the state and nationally were

relieved that Walz was chosen and not Shapiro

or Kelly. But with so much surprise and

untraditional aspects of the 2024 national

elections, and in so much uncharted political ‘

territory, the ultimate winners and losers when

the votes are counted are yet unknown.

“Hillbilly Elegy” or “Walz-ing Kamala” —- take

your choice.

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Copyright (c) 2024 by Barry  Casselman. All rights reserved.