Tuesday brought us the first special election flip of the cycle, but it was a particularly dismaying one, because it never had to happen in the first place. Republican state Rep. Jason Rarick defeated Democrat Stu Lourey, a former aide to Sens. Tina Smith and Al Franken, by a 52-46 margin in Minnesota's 11th State Senate District, increasing the GOP's caucus in the chamber to 35 and reducing Democrats to just 32 seats.
The outcome was foreseeable, though, and in fact was foreseen: We warned that it was a mistake for Democratic Gov. Tim Walz to tap the seat’s occupant as his health commissioner last month, on the very same day the appointment was announced. And it wasn’t hard to see why. This rural district, located just southwest of Duluth, swung sharply against Democrats at the presidential level in 2016: In 2012, it voted for Barack Obama 55-43, but four years later, Donald Trump carried it 53-40.
That incumbent, not coincidentally, was state Sen. Tony Lourey, the father of Stu. The elder Lourey's resignation triggered a primary that took place less than three weeks later, a tight timeframe that may have helped his son ride through on name recognition. (Becky Lourey, mother of Tony and grandmother of Stu, had also held this seat, from 1997 to 2007.) As it was, Stu Lourey only beat former TV anchor Michelle Lee, who'd had the official endorsement of the Democratic Party, 53-47.
But that family name wasn't enough to defy gravity in a general election in a district that, like so many other white working-class areas in the Midwest, has trended away from Democrats, and it was naïve to assume it would. Walz had any number of no doubt excellent options to head his health department, and he himself had every reason to know better, considering he only eked out a narrow 48-47 win in the 11th District last year even as he won a dominant 54-42 victory statewide.
Had Walz instead chosen someone else, Democrats would be facing just a 34-33 deficit in the Senate. Fortunately, there are other, better targets in 2020, when every seat will be up, and it's possible that Tony Lourey might have retired anyway (though he's just 51). But now, Team Blue's task of retaking the chamber from the GOP just got that much harder—and it didn't have to.