((In the final days of an election, there is so much information from so many races, it's difficult to stay on top of every story and understand the subtle dynamics often at play on the ground. Thankfully, we have an expansive 50-state blogosphere to match our 50-state strategy. Over the last two weeks of the campaign, we've asked leaders of the state blogospheres to provide insight into late developments and share the stories of their states in a series we're calling "Listening to the Locals." SusanG)
Al Franken announced in early 2007 that he would run against Bush Republican Norm Coleman for the Senate seat once occupied by progressive hero Paul Wellstone. That event alone made Minnesota an interesting place to be during the 2008 election cycle.
Then, on September 17th, Republican Congressman Jim Ramstad announced his retirement, setting off a closely-watched race for his Third district seat. Excitement +1.
Just eleven days later, the Republican National Committee announced that it would hold its 2008 convention in St. Paul. Was the Republican Party looking to flip a state with a blue reputation but only went to the Democratic Presidential nominee by slim margins in the previous two elections? Excitement +5.
Minnesota is also the state first-term Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann calls home and sometimes does and says funny things that turn a race in an R+5 district into a tossup.
Needless to say, it's been a big cycle so far in Minnesota. Read all about it after the break.
MN-Sen: Al Franken vs. Norm Coleman
Franken's taken his share of lumps in this race. Some bad media cycles were the result of past tax issues in several states, and Coleman's campaign and allies have tried to make his career as a sometimes-off-color satirist an issue. Franken kept working and raising big sums of money, but for a while earlier this year, it looked like the Republican attacks might work -- even some Democrats were down on his chances, and it looked like candidates further down the ballot who were looking for coattails would be out of luck. However, take a look at this poll graph:
(A couple more polls have come out since that graph was drawn, but both show the same trend)
That blue line is Franken's 5-poll running average. The red is Coleman. The pea green is Dean Barkley, the Independence Party candidate who briefly succeeded Paul Wellstone between the late Senator's death and Norm Coleman's ascension in 2003. Note how consistent Franken's trend has been -- a slight blip around the beginning of October, but otherwise, he has weathered the storms of bad media he faced earlier in the year with surprising resiliency.
Coleman, on the other hand, suffered when Barkley got into the race. At the beginning of October, Barkley's numbers jumped, and Coleman's dove -- to about 3 points below Franken's. Barkley's support may evaporate a little by November 4th, but in the state that elected Paul Wellstone (liberal Dem Senator), Jesse Ventura (third-party Governor), Mark Dayton (liberal-ish Dem Senator), Norm Coleman (political chameleon) and Tim Pawlenty (solid conservative GOP Governor) in the space of just six years, voters are willing to consider and stick with unconvential and third-party candidates. Expect Barkley to hold onto at least 12-14 points, and the win to go to whoever can get to 44 points. FiveThirtyEight.com currently shows Franken with a 59% chance of winning, so while anything could happen, Barack Obama's massive statewide field operation provides a valuable assist for Franken. Things look pretty good.
On the web: Franken for Senate
MN-03: Battle for the Suburbs
Minnesota's Third congressional district: Essentially, Hennepin County minus Minneapolis. Wraps around from the northern suburbs of Anoka, Coon Rapids, and Brooklyn Park, to the western burbs of Maple Grove, Plymouth, Minnetonka, Eden Prairie, around to the southern areas of Edina and Bloomington.
When Jim Ramstad retired from his seat representing the western suburbs of Minneapolis, DFL State Sen. Terri Bonoff jumped into the race, locked up support from her fellow state legislators and several figures in the state party, and appeared to be the frontrunner. She was opposed in the party endorsement race by Mayor Jim Hovland of Edina, who shook off the (R) after his name, declared himself a Democrat, and actually made a solid impression upon liberal party activists.
But there was another candidate in the race -- another former Republican named Ashwin Madia, who is an attorney, retired Marine, and Iraq war veteran who grew up in the Third district. He jumped into the race, and immediately started wowing activists. I endorsed him ahead of the CD3 convention, and wrote:
I'll tell you what I like most about his approach to this campaign: Here's the problem put succinctly, and here's what I think we ought to do about it, put just as succinctly. You know what you're going to get on any given issue -- the issue at hand in two or three bullet points, and concise, concrete steps that Madia thinks should be taken in order to solve it.
Is Madia perfect? No, of course not. No candidate is. He will need to raise oodles of money to match up against Republican Erik Paulsen in this race, and will need bits of polish here and there as any first-time candidate does. But the necessities - fundraising ability, grassroots support and organization, clear priorities -- are all there in spades.
Madia would go on to win the party endorsement, with some interesting stuff happening at the convention.
He then did exactly what he needed to do -- eventually hired the right staff, and started raising money hand over fist, totalling $2.1 million through the end of Q3.
On the Republican side, activists and party leaders lined up behind State Rep. Erik Paulsen, who worked for Ramstad before getting elected to the state legislature, and served for a time as House Majority Leader. Despite Paulsen's rhetoric that he can help fix a broken Congress, reality is somewhat biased against Paulsen -- one does not become a Republican Majority Leader by assiduously exercising bipartisanship on the chamber floor.
Madia has reached financial parity with Paulsen by working his tail off on the phone. The problem Madia now faces is a barrage of negative advertising from Paulsen, the state GOP, and some independent groups. The message of these efforts has, for several weeks now, has been to shy away from talking about Paulsen (for fear of accidentally exposing his right-wing extremism) and to focus instead on the gay Macaca traitor Democrat running against them. Think that's an overstatement? Check this out: that's State Sen. Geoff Michel (a piece of work in his own right) and state Republican Party chair Ron Carey talking about how Erik Paulsen fits the "demographic" of the district and Madia, well, doesn't. Of course, when the traiditional media actually does their job and recognizes racially-coded language for what it is, it's more difficult for people like Carey and Paulsen to push their talking points off as fact.
The district shows up on the GOP's death list memo as a toss-up, and it seems they've decided that this is a must-win-at-all-costs seat. Recent polls have shown Madia leading by a couple of points with third-party candidate David Dillon getting around 5-8 points -- this is another seat that could be won with a shade less than 50%. Madia has plenty of paid media coming in the next week, but needs help to keep up the pressure. The Franken-Coleman and Tinklenberg-Bachmann races are higher-profile, but if you have the resources to help anywhere in Minnesota, this is it -- this is where the GOP has drawn their line in the slime, and a committed Democratic candidate needs your help to become a committed Democratic Congressman.
On the web: Madia for Congress
MN-06: Keeping up with the Crazy
Minnesota's Sixth -- one of those funny districts that covers a wide swath of geographic area, encompassing exurban areas from the east Metro all the way up to St. Cloud, in the middle of the State. Along with the 2nd, one of the most demographically conservative districts in the state.
You may have heard of Michele Bachmann -- she's the ultra-conservative Republican who really wanted a kiss from President Bush at the 2007 State of Union, made some curious statements about an Iranian plan for partitioning Iraq, has been a stick in the mud on every important piece of legislation in the House this cycle, and most recently, went on MSNBC's Hardball and as much as called Barack Obama un-American, and called for a McCarthy-style investigation into members of Congress. Then denied it. Then repeated it.
Bachmann's DFL opponent, former state Transportation Commissioner El Tinklenberg, raised oodles of money from Bachmann's repeated gaffes, and has risen to a slim lead in multiple polls conducted after Bachmann's latest spate of foot-in-mouth syndrome. Tinklenberg has been endorsed by the Blue Dogs -- not a point in his favor with many in the Netroots, and for good reason. On the issues, Tinklenberg would certainly be one of the more conservative Democrats in Congress. However, the alternative -- another term for Michele Bachmann -- would be a whole lot worse.
The GOP's death list memo also (somewhat surprisingly) listed MN-06 as a tossup -- this race truly could go either way.
On the web: Tinklenberg for Congress
Local races: The State House is where it's at
In 2002, the state GOP hit a high-water mark -- they elected a conservative Republican to the Governor's office, held all statewide offices other than Attorney General, and built a big majority in the House. Those gains were reversed in 2004, as the DFL got back to just a 68-66 deficit. The trend continued in 2006, as the DFL took back all statewide offices besides Governor, and took an 85-49 majority in the House. Unfortunately, 90 votes are necessary to override the Governor's veto, and Gov. Tim Pawlenty stood in the way of as many pieces of Democratic legislation as possible. House Dems managed to get six Republicans to vote for a veto override on a transportation funding bill -- those six Republicans were ostracized and essentially kicked out of the Republican caucus for that one vote.
There are several great DFL candidates running for the House this year -- Among them, Paul Rosenthal and Mike Obermueller are running in the suburbs, and both are experienced candidates, having run and lost by slim margins in 2006 (Obermueller lost by just 100 votes). The House DFL caucus is working hard to take over the seats they need to make Pawlenty irrelevant, and Obama coattails could help make it happen, especially in the suburbs around the Twin Cities.
Bottom line:
Minnesota's dalliance with Republican governance seems to be at an end, and DFL leaders have recommitted themselves to providing clean, responsible government. That doesn't mean the GOP won't try to flip the state that hasn't voted for a Republican presidential nominee since 1972 -- make sure you keep a close eye on these races.
Read: Minnesota Campaign Report
Give: Blue Majority MN