Around the same time Donald Trump hired a state campaign director for Minnesota, a Trump sign sprouted up in the neighborhood of my cabin in northern Minnesota. 

The timing of the sign’s appearance and the hiring were coincidental. What’s not coincidental is that the state campaign director, Mike Lukach, is the former campaign director for 8th Congressional District candidate Stewart Mills — experience that could help Trump mine (sorry) northern Minnesota for votes, thanks to Trump’s proposals on trade and immigration.   

Lukach, reached by phone, declined to give an interview other than saying he started on the job two weeks ago. But David FitzSimmons, chief of staff for Rep. Tom Emmer, confirmed that he met with Lukach last week. “I think he’s a definitely a professional guy, so he will know how to do the basics,” FitzSimmons said. “We talked about how to access not just Republicans but Democrats and independents who are not locked in.”

Lukach’s hiring was among a string of events that seemed to indicate that Minnesota is on the GOP presidential candidate's radar, even if the state represents an unlikely pickup in November. Days after Trump hired Lukach, he also singled out Minnesota in a speech in Maine, calling Minneapolis a breeding ground for terrorists because of its Somali population. That came after an announcement that Trump will have a fundraiser in Minneapolis on Aug. 19, which was followed by a report in the The National Journal that the Trump campaign has requested ad rates for TV time in Minnesota (along with 16 other states).

One of the hosts of the fundraising event is Hubbard Broadcasting CEO Stanley Hubbard, who is not happy with Trump’s recent behavior — especially his comments about Khizr and Ghazala Khan — and recently wrote the nominee to express his frustration.

Still, he’s standing by his commitment to host the Minneapolis fundraiser. “I forgot I said I’d do one of these and I was just reminded,” said Hubbard, one of 10 hosts of the Minneapolis event. Hubbard gasped at the $100,000 price tag for the top-tier event, but the minimum asking price of $1,000 “sounds reasonable,” he said.

The Minneapolis event will be the second fundraiser that week. On Aug. 16, Trump will be in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. The fundraisers are independent of each other with a separate roster of hosts, although both events are coordinated with the Republican National Committee and potential area donors have received invitations to both. 

At neither event is there any indication that Trump intends to make a public appearance, though that could change given the recent history of the Trump campaign, which is nothing if not unpredictable. 

FitzSimmons hopes so. Trump’s positions could be very appealing to some swing voters in Minnesota, Fitzsimmons said, “but it’s hard to do stuff when you don’t have the person.”

Jason Lewis won the 2nd Congressional District GOP primary Tuesday in a four-way race that caught the eye of national political observers, even if it didn't make a whole lot of noise over the last few months. 

The lack of statewide races and a beautiful summer day explain the low statewide turnout of 7 percent, but in the 2nd Congressional District, money – or the decision not to spend much of it – was another reason the race didn't generate as much attention as one might expect. 

Luke Hellier, a GOP activist in the district, said he received only one piece of mail on behalf of Lewis, a few pieces of mail from candidate Darlene Miller, and no get-out-the-vote calls. “It was a low-spending race,” he said. “And maybe it was a strategic move on Lewis’s part.”

It was, according to Lewis’s campaign manager, Jack Dwyer. “We tried to be diligent,” he said. “We didn’t want to spend every dollar when our main goal is winning in November.” Dwyer said Lewis’s victory owed as much to the GOP endorsement and Lewis’s good relationship with conservative voters as direct mail and advertising.

But now, Lewis heads into the general election and must make a major leap in fundraising to keep pace with his DFL opponent, Angie Craig. She has raised $2.5 million, and still has most of it on hand. Lewis didn’t spend much to win the primary, but he also didn't raise that much, about $350,000.  

Angie Craig

Craig will also get ample assistance from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which has earmarked as much as three million dollars for advertising in the 2nd Congressional District.  The ads most certainly will use Lewis provocative comments from his days as a talk radio host to portray him has a far-right demagogue.

Lewis will get his own assist from the National Republican Congressional Committee, which is prepared to spend money on this race to depict Craig as far too liberal, even in a swing district like the second. But Lewis will still need his own funds. “He needs to get out there early to define who he is, to show him as a dad, and a businessman — before the Democrats paint a different picture,” Hellier said.

In short, with Craig ready to do battle, Lewis will need to make a lot more noise than he did in the primary. And voters can expect to be pummeled with political persuasion from both sides.

The Donald Trump fundraiser Friday at the Minneapolis Convention Center will be short on bold-faced names and long on security.

Security for the GOP presidential candidate is of such high concern that it forced the Trump campaign to cancel a public rally and to relocate the fundraiser from the Minneapolis Club to the convention center.

The campaign had consulted Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek about suitable venues for the Trump visit. He said he convinced them that protestors would create security problems at the Minneapolis Club, the usual location for big dollar fundraisers.  

“The Minneapolis Club has only two ways in and out and both could be blocked by protestors,” Stanek said.  “But the Minneapolis Convention Center has multiple egresses so a security detail could have options and there’s a secure entrance for a motorcade to enter.”

The anticipation that Trump would be greeted by more protestors than supporters also eliminated the option of a public rally. Only two Minneapolis venues — the convention center and Target Center — offer the kind of security the Trump campaign needs for a rally, according to Stanek.

Target Center was booked and sources say the convention center didn’t want to take on the safety problems a Trump rally would create.

Stanek, a Republican, will not be attending the fundraiser, which is being hosted by a dozen regular GOP donors.  Also absent are other prominent Republican politicians, including Minnesota Speaker of the House Kurt Daudt, Senate Minority Leader David Hann and U.S. Rep. Eric Paulsen. U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer and some state Republican Party officers will be there.

But the skeletal presence of GOP leaders is an indication of Trump’s popularity problem with down-ticket Republicans. My colleague Sam Brodey wrote about the complications Trump’s controversial statements have created for Paulsen in particular.

By comparison, in 2012, top GOP politicians elbowed their way into events to be seen with presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Back then, Paulsen was eager to support Romney, endorsing him for president in January of that year, well before Romney secured the nomination.

The Trump fundraiser is not expected to be well attended, an indication, perhaps, of reluctance on the part of local Republican donors. But here, too, security is playing a role, Stanek said. “There will be people certainly who will choose not to show up because of concerns about protestors and safety,” he said.

At least one protest is planned for the Trump visit. A group called Cosecha that works for immigrant rights and protection is asking supporters to meet at GOP headquarters on Franklin Avenue Friday to paint a fabric wall around the building to protest Trump’s proposals on immigration.

Donald Trump’s appearance at a Minneapolis fundraiser seemed to do little for his image in the state other than elevating a spat between the state Republican party and Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges over the treatment of protestors who were hassling attendees.

But the fundraiser solidified the support of his core followers, including a pair of one-time Trump skeptics.

Janet Beihoffer attended the fundraiser in her capacity as national committeewoman for the Minnesota Republican Party. Prior to the event, she said, she was resigned. “You [Trump] played the game. You got some breaks and you got the delegates,’” she said. “OK, that’s it.”

The fundraiser changed her opinion. “When we were going through the photo line, I did not expect to be impressed with him,” she said. “But he was asking everyone who went through the line what they thought. He waited for the answer and he repeated the answer. One on one, this guy is a completely different personality.”

Doug Seaton, an Edina attorney and a sponsor of the fundraiser, admits that Trump never made the cut on the list of GOP candidates Seaton would support for president. Now he’s volunteered to help the Trump campaign make its argument that a special prosecutor is needed to investigate the release of the Hillary Clinton emails from her time as secretary of state.

“Everybody raises flags, but [Trump] raises far fewer flags than Hillary Clinton,” Seaton said, an attitude adopted by most Minnesota Republicans who say they will vote for Trump.

As for the appointment of a special prosecutor to look into whether donors to the Clinton Foundation received special treatment at the State Department, Seaton says, “I don’t think you can trace this sort of trail when influence is working its way into the system, but can we show that there hasn’t been an out come and policy decisions because of connections to the Clinton Foundation? They should do it but I am very pessimistic they will do it.”

Janet Beihoffer

The Clinton campaign, in response to Seaton, referred me to a statement from John Podesta, chair of the campaign, who says Trump has his own conflicts of interest.  

“The Foundation has already laid out the unprecedented steps the charity will take if Hillary Clinton becomes president,” Podesta said. “Donald Trump needs to come clean with voters about his complex network of for-profit businesses…. He must commit to fully divesting himself from all of his business conflicts to ensure that he is not letting his own financial interests affect decisions made by his potential administration."

As true party loyalists, Beihoffer and Seaton actually see a path where Trump could win Minnesota in November. “If you factor what the Green Party and the Libertarian Party could take away from the Democrats, it’s possible,” Beihoffer said.

“He has been a confrontational and aggressive figure, a take-no-prisoners warrior for what he believes in. Along the way he has …… infuriated and offended friends and foes alike.”

This is not a description of Donald Trump. This is from a profile of my former boss, Gov. Arne Carlson, written by Dane Smith in the Star Tribune in January 1999, Arne’s last year in office.

Combativeness is a quality than can make a leader but create a nightmare for a political campaign. The latest iteration of leadership in the Trump campaign is trying to manage him — with mixed results. But even if they succeed, they run the risk that their renegade candidate will become the politician he has raged against.

I sympathize. Harnessing Carlson’s particular brand of energy was one of my tasks as I helped manage his 1994 campaign for re-election.

Although Carlson was hugely popular, the Republican party did not endorse him for re-election. On the road to the primary, Arne wanted to charge and take charge. He wanted to lash out at the Republicans who endorsed Allen Quist. He wanted to take down the DFL, which promised him an ugly fight in the general election.

Every once in a while, I stood in the way of those outbursts. My goal was not to thwart Carlson’s instincts. He was right — most of the time. But we, including Arne, didn’t want a flash of temper or a misspoken word to undercut the record he was campaigning on. Still, a campaign is a calendar of the unanticipated and unexpected.

For example, one steamy September afternoon, Arne was campaigning in Hutchinson, talking to a group of farmers. One of them complained that the state was still spending too much money and challenged Carlson on his decision to fund the state film board.

With the Twin Cities media in attendance, Arne responded with a heated lecture on budget priorities. I intervened, reminding him how the state’s film industry led to his dinner that year with actress Ann-Margret who was filming in Minnesota.

Arne recovered with a quip about his sex appeal. The farmers chortled. The tension passed. In fact, Arne bonded with all the other Ann-Margret fans in the room.

There was no silver lining to Carlson’s interview with the American Jewish World in which he compared Quist to Hitler. He said Quist represented a “narrow sliver” of Minnesota Republicans but “a narrow sliver has the ability to take over an entire system.” He added, “That clearly is how Hitler started out.”

MinnPost file photo by James Nord

Former Gov. Arne Carlson

I wasn’t with him during that interview and even if I were, there was no putting the words back in his mouth. Quist was furious. Even worse, the state Republican party, with which we were approaching rapprochement, was outraged. Carlson apologized in a written statement.

There were other tests. The occasional protests when Carlson campaigned on the Iron Range. The constant reminding that Arne had to suffer in silence when his ex-wife Barbara taunted him with tales of their sex life on her radio show.

But I knew, ultimately, Carlson would prevail. He had a sense of humor. He had great discipline. Remember, this is man who in high school overcame a serious speech impediment by excelling in debate and theater.

Carlson also had affection and respect for his campaign team.  He listened to us and we to him because he really wanted to serve the people of Minnesota.

So I can commiserate, up to a point, with Trump campaign. But you can’t control a candidate into being something he is not. We let Arne be Arne and he was one of the state’s best governors.

So let Trump be Trump. The voters will decide the rest.

If Donald Trump is making inroads among Minnesota voters — as his supporters claim — there’s no evidence of that in the form of broadcast political ads.

Trump and Hillary Clinton and the PACs that support them have booked zero dollars in the Minnesota broadcast markets through November 7, according to an analysis by Advertising Age.

The surprise is the presidential candidate that has booked ad time — Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson. The Ad Age report shows that Johnson has reserved $122,000 in Minnesota advertising, to be placed on radio. It’s part of a roughly $1.5 million dollar ad buy designed not so much to win votes as to raise Johnson’s profile sufficiently to be included in the presidential debates.

The Johnson spending, though, is a pittance compared to Trump and especially Clinton. As of the end of August, Ad Age estimates that Clinton has reserved $109 million in broadcast ad time; Trump reserved $5 million of the same.  Most of this is targeted to voters in the east and southeast markets with particular focus on Ohio and Pennsylvania. And it will remain that way for the rest of the campaign.

“We’re such a blue state that we generally don’t see much from the presidential candidates [in any election year],” said Ray Mirabella, sales director for KSTP-TV.  

From a TV sales perspective, the bright spots in the Twin Cities this political year are competitive congressional races. Mirabella says KSTP has taken orders from third district candidates Eric Paulsen and Terri Bonoff, eighth district candidates Stuart Mills and Rick Nolan, and second district candidate Angie Craig. He said he’s expecting Craig’s opponent Jason Lewis to make an ad purchase shortly.

And that’s just the ads placed by the candidates. “The candidate money is substantial but not anywhere near what the PAC money and congressional committee money is,” Mirabella said.

As for the absence of Clinton and Trump ads, they may yet appear on Minnesota broadcast outlets. “The race may be tightening so we may see some presidential ads in the future,” Mirabella said. “And with election on November 8, we have almost a full week more of time to sell than we’ve had in other election years.”

Furthermore, Mirabella notes that political advertising is always unpredictable. “There’s no such thing as normal,” he said.  The political advertising cycle in a highly unusual presidential campaign may just be following suit.

In the spring of 1994, Arne Carlson’s chief of staff, Ed Stringer, called me into his office to deliver Carlson’s latest job approval rating as measured by a Star Tribune poll. 

Stringer was beaming. “Fifty-seven percent!” he announced. Carlson would leave office with job approval in the high sixties, rarefied territory for a politician.  

Two decades on, Gov. Mark Dayton is coming close to those numbers. A poll conducted between May and September found Dayton with a job approval rating of 59 percent and disapproval rating of 33 percent, with eight percent having no opinion.

That makes Dayton among the more popular governors in America (technically, the 14^th most popular), behind the governors of South Dakota (leading the pack with 74 percent approval), Arkansas, Tennessee and South Carolina, states with more politically homogenous populations.

Dayton has had his share problems that can add to a governor’s negatives. He raised taxes. His administration’s rollout of MNsure, while not scandalous, revealed an inept leadership team that seriously misunderstood the magnitude of the challenge then responded slowly to fix the many problems. And his decision to award severance payments to several former cabinet members will certainly hurt him among some voters (the poll was conducted before that news broke).

But there’s been nothing close to some of the near-fatal blows other governors have suffered of late. Think Chris Christie’s “Bridgegate” scandal; Kansas Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s severe budget cutbacks; or Maine Gov. Paul LePage’s seemingly uncontrollable verbal outbursts.

More importantly, as with Carlson, voters seem to like and respect Dayton, even they don’t always agree with him. I’ve seen the evidence at the State Fair, watching both Dayton and Carlson in action. Neither man is a natural people person, but you wouldn’t know it by the high-fives and warm greetings they seem to attract. It’s rarely “Hello, Governor,” with either man.  It was, “Hey, Arne, keep up the good work.”  And, “Mark, you keep fighting for us.”

Both governors have mastered the art of compensating for prickly personalities and unpopular decisions by giving voters something that’s more valuable: a sense that they're accessible, honest and authentic.

Voters tend to see their governor as almost a member of the family. He or she is the politician they probably know best. So a voter wants a governor that delivers a course action that comes from principles, even when those principles stray from the party lines.

Dayton believes in high taxes, but he also believes in gun owners’ rights — and has governed accordingly. Carlson kept a firm hand on state spending, but he also defied his party with his support for gay rights.

Both men could be unpredictable — but not unreliable.  They follow their principles as well as their political instincts.

That's the basis for solid job approval for a governor in any state.  

minncan.org

Tim Penny

Former Congressman Tim Penny, mild-mannered and equable, would seem an unlikely doomsday prophet. But he has a gloomy assessment of this presidential election. 

“I always thought of myself as an optimist about our system,” he said. “I think I still believe that, but I have said on more than one occasion that sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. This presidential election is perhaps it. Two candidates that are equally disliked are the only choices we've got.”

Penny believes that regardless who wins the election, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will exacerbate the polarization of America's political parties. 

According to Penny, it's the parties, not the people, that have produced candidates Clinton and Trump. “The public is not as polarized as the parties, but the party is the gatekeeper. And each is dominated by its own special interest groups,” he said.  “They set the terms and tone of the debate. You dance with the ones that brung ya.”

The national parties, particularly the Republican Party, have bragged about record primary and caucus turnout in 2016.  But it was still only a fraction of voters, notes Penny. “When you add up all the people that participated, the vast majority did not participate and ended up choosing between two candidates they may not have chosen in the first place.”

“Open primaries would have opened the door for someone other than Bernie Sanders being the alternative to Clinton,” he said. “And Trump would have had a little more difficult time. Rank-and-file Republican voters are very animated and fired up to send a message and he tapped into that mood very effectively. But if a broader swath were allowed to vote his number would not have been as strong.” 

Penny insists, though, the primaries must be open, that is: anyone can vote in either a Democratic or Republican primary. Minnesota will go to a presidential primary system in 2020. The state will sponsor the primary elections and voters can decide which party primary they want to participate in. And while the vote itself is private, the party ballot the voter selected will be public information, which will allow the parties to be able to collect voter identification to build their voter base.

“The interests of the state are not tied to the two political parties, but that was the quid pro quo [of the legislation],” Penny said.  “That is in a sense a corrupt idea — using the power of the state to benefit a political party.” 

Spoken like the independent that Penny has evolved into. Penny doesn’t need political affiliation in his role as head of the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation, an economic development organization. But he’s still a believer in the political process and that’s where he finds the silver lining in this year’s presidential election. “It may be that it could be the catalyst for people to say we’ve got to find a different caliber of leader,” he said.

Hillary Clinton shouldn’t need to do this, the pundits say. The first woman nominee for president shouldn’t need to dispatch her former rival for the nomination, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, to rally young voters who ought to be all in for a political groundbreaker.

But Clinton is incapable of scorching the earth with the rhetoric that Sanders summoned up at a rally on her behalf at the University of Minnesota, where he reiterated a progressive agenda that can seem inspirational for a young voter wanting to change the world.

At the U of M’s Northrop Auditorium, he brought the crowd of 1,600 to its feet a dozen times with incantations against “the grotesque level of income inequality,” “climate change deniers,” and “a broken criminal justice system.”

The current federal minimum wage “is a starvation wage,” and “it is insane” for young people to graduate with college debt, he said.

The crowd applauded appreciatively when Sanders reminded them that Hillary Clinton was “only one candidate running for president” that had the solutions to these crises. But they clapped harder and hooted louder when Sanders invoked the name of Donald Trump, “the worst candidate for president in the modern history of the United States.”  

It was an assembly that was, for the most part, fiercely anti-Trump, willingly pro-Clinton, and passionately pro-Sanders, including a few Sanders supporters that will not budge.

“I just can’t vote for her,” said student Matt Pappas from Coon Rapids. “My hang up is the Iraq war. She has a pattern of foreign policy that I don’t agree with. I don’t really think she’s taken the steps to move toward Bernie Sander’s foreign policy. I won’t be voting for Donald Trump. I won’t be voting for Hillary Clinton.”

Student Zoe Rutherford of Rochester understands the sentiment. “So many people are trying to pull away from the mainstream candidates,” she said, which is why she, as a Clinton supporter, deemed Sanders’ support important. “I’m really happy that he finally decided to support Hillary Clinton. It’s kind of a lot coming from him.”

With polls showing a close race between Clinton and Trump in Minnesota, the Clinton campaign is taking no chances with this and other blocs of voters she has yet to fire up. Another piece of kindling goes on the flames Thursday as Chelsea Clinton campaigns on her mother’s behalf in Minneapolis and St. Paul. 

A weekend poll by the Wall Street Journal and NBC news shows that Hillary Clinton took an 11-point lead over Donald Trump in the wake of the release of a recording of vulgar remarks Trump made in 2005.   

Trump’s remarks were so juvenile and lewd that dozens of GOP candidates — including Minnesota House speaker Kurt Daudt, Congressman Eric Paulsen, and former Gov. Tim Pawlenty — jumped the Trump ship, and media outlets proclaimed a party in free fall. 

But that may not tell the whole story. That same WSJ poll showed that 67 percent of Republicans believe the party should continue to support Trump as the nominee.  In that group, at least philosophically, is Minnesota Republican Party national committeewoman Janet Beihoffer and fourth district Trump chairman Brian LeClair. 

I asked them to explain their continued support.

MinnPost: What was your reaction to the recording’s obscene language and intimations of physical assault that Donald Trump described as “locker room talk?”

Janet Beihoffer: My reaction is, it’s despicable. It’s disgusting. But it's locker room talk. People say it’s not presidential but I keeping getting down to this. These were words. Bill Clinton actually did stuff and the women whom he touched inappropriately or whatever actually said you can’t do that and they went after him. Look at what Hillary said against the women who made accusations against her husband. Her words were just as degrading to some women as Trump’s words. 

Brian LeClair: I’m uncomfortable talking about that video. I don’t want to defend it.  It’s right that Donald Trump apologized. I thought he was very sincere.  

MP: But the recording isn’t enough for you to renounce your support or call for Trump to step down?

JB: He’s flawed, flawed, flawed. But, I know some of the people advising him, from the National Review and the Heritage Foundation. He’s trying to listen. I look at Hillary and I see Supreme Court nominees and appellate court nominees and trade association [favors] and U.S. relations worldwide. So much of politics is the lesser of two evils. None of us is going to get exactly what we want.   

BL: It’s more than just the alternative. There are also those of us who think Mr. Trump can be an incredible force of change. It’s not just the lesser of two evils.     

MP: Some Minnesota Republican leaders — Daudt, Pawlenty, Paulsen — don’t agree with your assessment. Were they wrong to renounce their support?

Janet Beihoffer

JB: I wouldn’t say it’s wrong. I think they spoke too quickly because there is so much more at stake and we can’t afford Hillary. If I were in that position I would have given a political answer like in Iowa. [At a Sunday event, Republican Sens. Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley and GOP Gov. Terry Branstad condemned Trump’s remarks but remained supportive of his candidacy.] They didn’t condone it. They condemned it, but. Our guys didn’t do the “Yeah, but … ” which is four more years of Obama policies.  

BL: I don’t want to pick a fight with them. I disagree with the speaker’s leadership on that campaign tactic, but I still believe in Reagan’s 11^th commandment — that we should not speak ill of one another. I guess my reaction is this: Donald Trump never had a lot of party leadership support in the primaries. He spoke to the issues on the minds of rank and file voters. If that cycle is going to repeat itself in the general election, I’m very comfortable.  

MP: What are you hearing from other grass roots Republicans?

JB: I’m not hearing a lot of about anti-Trump. I’m not hearing that from the party or state executive committee people. They may just sit back and not vote for him.  

BL: The emails are flying fast and furious this morning – a lot of relief about how [Trump performed in the debate Sunday night] and how the next four weeks can play out. The energy is back in the Trump campaign.

Count Minnesota Majority President Dan McGrath as one of the doubters of Donald Trump’s claims that the presidential election is going to be rigged.

His skepticism is notable. Minnesota Majority, after all, is the conservative watchdog group that led the movement for a state constitutional amendment on voter I.D. and that aggressively seeks out cases of voter fraud. 

But from his experience, which includes recruiting poll-watchers through Minnesota Majority and an umbrella organization, Election Integrity Watch, McGrath doubts that voter fraud could be a factor in the presidential election. “I think it would be difficult to sway an election with a big victory margin. If you’re talking 1 to 2 percent that could be more feasible, but it would take a lot of effort to orchestrate,” he said.  

And orchestration is daunting, he said. “All elections are state business, so orchestrating a national campaign would have to be coordinated with states, each with their own elections laws."

Voter fraud, according to McGrath, is usually conducted on small-scale campaigns – county, city and sheriff’s races. “That’s mostly where elected officials have been caught and prosecuted,” he said.  

MinnPost file photo by James Nord

Dan McGrath

After the 2008 election in which Democrat Al Franken beat incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman by 312 votes, Minnesota Majority undertook an investigation that focused on convicted felons who voted in the 2008 election. (Minnesota law allows felons to vote only after serving time and probation.)

In the years since, McGrath and his group worked with lawmakers, and most recently DFL Secretary of State Steve Simon, “to make it as difficult as possible to cheat” in the polling booth. 

His biggest victory in that arena was a court ruling that overturned the online voter registration system established by former Secretary of State Mark Ritchie. And during the last legislative session, McGrath says he worked with Simon on another election fraud measure, helping pass a law that limits the number of people for whom someone can vouch from 15 to seven and requiring those vouchers to register not just with a signature but a printed name.  

“It’s still incremental,” McGrath said.  “We’re still shooting for voter I.D.”

The skimpy crowd that turned out Friday in Duluth to rally for Rep. Rick Nolan and Vice President Joe Biden might have been an indication of Nolan’s struggle to retain his Eighth District congressional seat against GOP challenger Stewart Mills.

Then again, the purpose of the rally was not to shower Nolan with love but rather to energize the crowd of 400, mainly DFL activists, to intensify their get-out-the-vote efforts and to prove once again that in Duluth and the Iron Range, the DFL is formidable in its one-on-one voter contact.

The event was as star-studded as these gatherings go. From the mayor of Duluth to fellow congressman Tim Walz to U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar to the vice president, they sang Nolan’s praises. Mainly, though, they preached to the choir to round up the faithful.

DFL Party chair Ken Martin issued a warning. “We know there is some enthusiasm problems for the DFL. Now you couple that with the fact that there’s some people… who believe we’re just going to walk into these elections,” he said. “I can tell you those two things could be a recipe for disaster. Lack of enthusiasm and complacency could mean that we see a huge drop in turnout.”

“You are the hard core of the hard core,” Walz told the crowd. “You gotta drag people to the polls.”

Biden offered a softer side of the argument for Nolan’s candidacy. “He’s a man of incredible character and more importantly, decency,” Biden said. “He knows why he’s in it and you do too. He’s in it to restore the middle class.”

Nolan reminded the crowd of his populist values and votes. “[Mills] wants to privatize social security and Medicare and turn that over to Wall Street? I guess not,” Nolan said to cheers. “Make no mistake about it. We made some bad trade deals and we’re not going to make any more.”

He reiterated his support for universal health care, abortion rights, and tax fairness.

But those DFL guiding principles may no longer be enough for a district that includes the frustrated blue-collar middle class of the Iron Range and northern Twin Cities suburbs.

The most recent media poll of the race gave GOP challenger Stewart Mills a four point lead over Nolan, with 14 percent still undecided.

Given the DFL’s turnout expertise, Nolan could overcome this slim deficit as he did in 2014. Except that this year, according to several polls, the Eighth District has shown a double-digit preference for Republican Donald Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton, a lead that Nolan might not be able to overcome.

It will take an exceptional turnout operation, party chair Martin acknowledges. But Nolan holds an indisputable edge, Martin pointed out in an interview. “There are still more Democrats in the Eighth District than Republicans,” he said.

And those voters, according to Nolan, don’t make their decisions on multi-million dollar ad campaigns. “People make the difference,” Nolan said in an interview before the rally. “Voters talking to voters. Neighbors talking to neighbors. That’s what counts on the Iron Range.”

The Republican Party officers in Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District have decided not to put presidential candidate Donald Trump on the sample ballot mailed to voters in the western suburbs. It’s a conspicuous decision that defines the dilemma the party is facing in this election — and for the future.

“I wouldn’t say it was a controversial decision,” said Danny Nadeau, deputy chair of the district’s executive committee. “It was a hard decision.”

Difficult or not, the decision led Barb Sutter, a member of the executive committee, to resign in protest, along with another member, Sheri Auclair. Sutter, who is also secretary of the state Republican Party, said: “They are not doing what the party stands for, which is supporting our candidates.” 

But Nadeau argues that candidate support is precisely why the decision was made.

“The district is focused on the congressional race and down-ballot races,” he said, referring to Rep. Erik Paulsen, a Republican who represents the 3rd District in Congress, and who is in a competitive race against DFL state Sen. Terri Bonoff.  “It was hard for long-term Republican people to look at this and ask, ‘Is the presidential candidate going to help or hurt?’. The questions had never come up before. But forget about the discussion. Get rid of the emotion. It was a decision based on the best available data that we had.”

Nadeau and other Republicans in the 3rd District have watched the change of legislative seats from Republican to DFL over multiple cycles, most notably the election of a DFL state senator and representatives in the former GOP stronghold of Edina. The district voted for President Barack Obama twice.

Trump’s emergence as the GOP nominee prompted the Democratic Party to dedicate time and money to defeat four-term incumbent Paulsen. “You can see the challenge we face as Republicans in the third congressional district,” Nadeau said. “When Republicans lose races in the third, we don’t get them back.” 

That is why Paulsen has targeted ticket-splitting independents, emphasizing his bipartisan accomplishments. “I’m one of only 34 members of the House in either party that had bills signed into law by the president this year,” Paulsen said in an interview after a Richfield campaign appearance.  

When asked if thought the party needed more Republicans like him he responded, “I think we need more people that are willing to work together to get some stuff done, yeah.”

Paulsen said again he plans on writing in Marco Rubio’s name for president. Sutter, for one, said she respects his campaign strategy and individual decision, but maintains the Trump snub on the sample ballot was wrong. “I think it sets a bad precedent,” she said.  “What if we have a gubernatorial endorsement and we decide he or she is not our cup of tea? When does this end?” 

It ends if the Republican Party can manage to hold on to the motivated, traditional base that still exists in the 3rd Congressional District while absorbing the new forces that put Trump at the top of the ticket. It won’t be easy. Many Trump supporters are not GOP activist material; they are unhappy voters who want to throw all the bums out.

What’s more likely is that the rift that Trump has created among the 3rd District’s rank-and-file Republicans will remain — regardless of whether Trump wins or loses.

Correction: The original version of this story stated that in the 2014 governor's race, Gov. Mark Dayton won the 3rd Congressional District over GOP challenger Jeff Johnson. In fact, Johnson won the district by 3 points. 

If the face of the Minnesota Republican Party is going to change with the election of Donald Trump, some of those new faces were at the Radisson Blu celebrating Trump’s victory.

Aside from the party officers, this was not the usual cadre of GOP activists, at least not the ones I’ve encountered at similar events over the years. 

They were young. There were faces of different colors. And some were older, a little rougher around the edges than the usual suits who traditionally show up at Republican events.

In fact, if you just looked at the crowd and erased the political signage, you might not guess what their common dominator was.

It was Donald Trump, of course.

“He’s gonna shake things up,” was the phrase I heard most often. “We’ve all had enough of the establishment, talking points of both parties. Start listening to the people,” said one Trump supporter, who was swallowed by the crowd before I could get her name.

In Minnesota, 45 percent of voters believed that Trump was listening to them. Democrat Hillary Clinton won the state by only 1½ points.

MinnPost photo by Brian Halliday

Andy Post

“The suburbs are not as much for Hillary as they had hoped, so that’s a Minnesota story,” said Andy Post, Trump’s Minnesota campaign director. “Outstate — these pockets of DFL votes — they’re just not coming through for Hillary.”

Post believes that means a change for the better.

“There’s a new Republican party,” he said. “Four years ago, the pundits, everybody said, 'We’ve got to change. We have to bring in Democrats.' You saw tonight tens of millions of Democrats [nationwide] voted for Donald Trump.”

There were no badge-wearing DFL-ers at the Radisson Blu on Tuesday, but there was only polite applause when party officers delivered positive results for Republican state legislative and U.S. House candidates. 

“We’re actually going to pick up more seats than we currently have,” Kurt Daudt, speaker of the House, told the crowd. (He was right; the GOP went on to extend its majority in the House.) “And I’m particularly excited to announce that when you run into Ron Erhardt on the street, you can call him former representative Ron Erhardt,” he said referring to the victory of Republican Dario Anselmo, which reclaims a prized Edina seat for the GOP. 

The cheers that greeted the names of the Republican winners seemed to come mainly from the House members who had joined Daudt on the podium.  

MinnPost photo by Brian Halliday

Ryan Hamilton

The voters at the GOP party were, first and foremost, for Trump, although the president-elect’s flaws and divisive campaign themes were noted by at least a few of his Minnesota supporters.

“I don’t like the rhetoric that may have been used to earn this victory,” said Ryan Hamilton, who asked to be identified as an African-American Republican. “But we are judged by our actions, not our words. Sometimes we say things. We’re all guilty of that, right? I wish he wouldn’t have said those things, but again it just comes down to what he does. That will be the ultimate decision.”

Be they true Trump supporters or Trump skeptics, state Party Chair Keith Downey said these voters will not only be welcome but could create a significant new wing of the party that will “cut across a lot of demographic and ethnic boundaries.”   

And even though candidate Trump created more boundaries than he knocked down, the crowd at the Radisson Blu may offer a preview of a new kind of Republican voter.

Minnesota was always in play for Donald Trump. 

So says his state campaign director and other Trump activists, who maintain that Trump’s narrow loss to Hillary Clinton here is nothing short of a political realignment — and that the DFL and Republican Party of Minnesota had better pay attention.

Trump’s campaign director in Minnesota was Andy Post, a 28-year old from Lakeville who says the Trump campaign recognized the opportunity the state presented shortly after the candidate’s nomination in July. By then, the campaign had the polling to know that there were enough of the kind of voters here they needed put the state in play.

When the campaign asked Post for his advice, he pointed out what he thought was obvious. “I said, ‘What does DFL mean? The second part is farmers and the third part is labor,’ ” Post said. “Farmers don't hate Trump, labor certainly doesn't hate Trump.”

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton wasn’t paying much attention to Democrats outside of Hennepin and Ramsey counties, leaving Greater Minnesota fertile territory for Trump votes. “Sometimes states go off the grid so long they become sleepers,” Post said. “The other side thinks they're safe.”

Post took on the Minnesota challenge. He had no paid operatives, but he appointed Trump chairs in each congressional district. Those people then identified volunteers who supported Trump with a fervor akin to what Barak Obama created in 2008.

“These people were energized. This was, 'We know we can win and we gotta get out and work, work, work,'” Post said. “I would much rather have the volunteers that we had than the typical ones that show up for the last two weeks of the campaign.”

John Gilmore, a St. Paul author and self-described “conservative who votes Republican,” caught Trump fever even before the GOP primaries. He predicted a year ago that Trump would take it all.

“I saw his appeal to those non-Republican and nontraditional Republican voters, people who had fallen out of the system,” Gilmore said. “We were told as Trump supporters that we were throwing away a sure win because we were fielding the strongest team that was ever put out. But actually Trump was the only Republican that could have beat Hillary Clinton.”

Gilmore believes that Minnesota Republicans, whom he tweaks with regularity in his blog and on Twitter, “don’t understand that Donald Trump has transformed Minnesota politics.”

Certainly, Trump failed to enchant the state’s establishment Republicans. Some GOP sample ballots didn’t even list him as the presidential candidate. Rep. Erik Paulsen told voters in the moderate 3rd Congressional District that he would not vote for Trump.  Speaker of the House Kurt Daudt called for Trump to be disqualified because of remarks Trump made about women.

But with Donald Trump, political leaders weren’t always in step with voters. “A ton of our volunteers came from CD 3,” Post said.  “And I've never seen anyone work more closely with a national campaign” than in the 1st and 8th Congressional Districts.

The Republican Party of Minnesota “never iced us out,” Post added, and supplied the Trump campaign with important voter data. Particularly, Post said, he was looking for mail voters who had not voted early. When he found them, Trump volunteers peppered them with calls, materials, and voting instructions. 

MinnPost photo by Brian Halliday

Andy Post

Post admires how well the Clinton team used the early voting option. “One of the reasons we lost in metro Minnesota was early voting,” he said. “It was smart of them [the Clinton campaign] to coordinate with Minneapolis to get people to the in-person voting sites.” 

Without early voting and the DFL’s estimable get-out-the-vote efforts, it’s possible the Clinton margin of victory could have been tighter or even nonexistent in Minnesota, especially because the Trump operation had what Post called “every campaign director’s dream — to get the candidate the Sunday before the election.”

With little time to prepare and with nonexistent resources, Post harnessed his volunteers to publicize a rally at the Sun Country hangar at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport for Sunday, Nov. 6, two days before election day.

“That is kind of the miracle story,” he said. “We posted online to RSVP. That's it. The media led with the story for two days. I knew we didn't have to worry.”

That is an understatement. Twenty thousand people said they would attend; at least 15,000 showed up in Bloomington. Post terms the rallies “old school, but they are effective.”

Post, Gilmore and others question whether either Republicans or Democrats can replicate Trump’s appeal to Minnesota voters, though. “The operation can be replicated,” Post said. “The candidate cannot. Trump was his own turnout machine.”

Still, Trump’s state campaigns made the most of its skeletal operations, leaving Post to speculate about Minnesota. “I can only imagine,” he said, “if we had a little more time or a little more resources, we could have turned it red.”

For a political candidate, name recognition is usually an asset. And most of the names of the politicians considering a run for Minnesota governor in 2018 have at least some voter recognition stemming from their years of public service.  

But in in the era of Trump, that familiarity may breed contempt. 

Trump lost Minnesota to Hillary by less than 45,000 votes. A considerable amount of his appeal was not only his stands on trade, immigration, and national security, but his promise to attack those problems with reforms that owed no allegiance to either major political party. 

Yet consider the current names that could top the ticket in 2018: On the DFL side, there's state Rep. Erin Murphy, Lt. Gov. Tina Smith, Attorney General Lori Swanson, State Auditor Rebecca Otto, and St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, among others. For Republicans, there’s Speaker of the House Kurt Daudt and GOP party chair Keith Downey.

All of them have something in common: all are party insiders whose accomplishments may not turn out to be great assets to a campaign. “If you really want reform,” said political consultant Lonny Leitner, who helped organize the Trump efforts in Minnesota and Iowa, “You don’t give one of these guys a promotion. Voters are still looking for an outsider with different types of experiences.” 

Leitner, a St. Paul native who was initially a Jeb Bush and Scott Walker supporter in the GOP nomination race, said that neither party appears to have yet grasped the significance of the Trump vote. “Minnesota is a diverse state with 87 counties,” he said. “Who are those Trump voters, who is that coalition? People get so trapped in the bubble in St. Paul, they forget the real needs, real concerns and fears, if you will, of the average Minnesotan.”

Republicans, who picked up legislative seats in greater Minnesota, may be in even worse shape that the metro-centric DFL, he suggested. “I worry looking at the Republican party, or lack thereof,” he said. “Until we can win metro seats, we are dying party.”

Former Senate majority leader Amy Koch has also been talking to other Republicans about where the party should be heading. “In 2010, we had a historic majority with no road map,” she said, a situation she believes needs to change for the next election cycle.

“We don’t even have conversations about a governor nominee,” she said. “It’s about the party. Some of it is about party structure. Some of it is about policy… like transportation, higher ed, and health care.”

And the groups, mainly organized at the local senate district level “very much get it,” she said. “I think the Republicans really need to understand what Minnesotans are concerned about and everything else will follow.”

Multiple factors will play into each party’s selection of a gubernatorial candidate, of course, including the actions of the legislature and the first two years of the Trump administration. But for the moment, the one-time fringe candidacy of Donald Trump could become the campaign template for Minnesota’s next governor.

Agriculture Secretary and former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack believes his Democratic party has a problem. Democrats lost this election cycle, he says, because they neglected the rural voter.  

The Minnesota Republican party has the problem in reverse. How does it hold on to the non-metro, non-Republican voters who voted for Donald Trump, which almost allowed him to defeat Hillary Clinton in the state?  

The party’s Republican national committeewoman Janet Beihoffer maintains there’s real opportunity given Trump’s showing and the GOP legislative victories that give the party control of the state House and Senate. “The overall deal can be capitalized on because we did flip the Senate and we did increase [the Republican majority in] the House,” she said. 

The prospects are especially tantalizing for 2018, when the there’s an open seat for governor.  “Do we get someone who runs for governor who understands why those people voted for Trump?” Beihoffer wonders. 

Statistically, the Republican party can determine who those voters are.  MinnPost reporter Greta Kaul has a good breakdown of where they live and how they have voted in the past. The party can look at other voting patterns to determine whether the voters who gave Clinton the edge will show up in a non-presidential election year.  

But the party will need more than data.  It will need a candidate that can talk about goals and objectives in a way that resonates. Jobs, the increase of health insurance premiums, and education likely still will be top issues. But a suburban voter’s concern is different from a rural voter’s. 

Beihoffer looks at it this way: “Often the metro area worker works on the abstract, on a computer,” she said.  “But a manufacturer or a farmer or a construction worker works with the tangible.” 

Janet Beihoffer

So while a lot of voters may rank education as a top concern, communicating how to reform education will be different from group to group, even if the solution is the same.

The Minnesota Republican Party has another challenge. It can claim no statewide elected politicians. Gov. Mark Dayton and Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken are not just symbolic leaders of the DFL; they provide the matrix for generally consistent DFL politics and policy.

The Republican party, by contrast, tends to operate in power silos — state House, state Senate, three congressional seats, and the state party itself. Beihoffer and others say that without a current statewide leader, improving intra-party communication is essential if Republicans want a coherent approach to voters — especially Trump voters — in the next election.

And the Republican Party of Minnesota, like the national GOP, has one more question mark: the performance of President Donald Trump.  “If he sets a plan to get rid of Obamacare, if he eases business regulations, if he turns education back to the states, the Trump voter stays with Trump,” Beihoffer said.

But if the honeymoon ends quickly, the Trump voter may forget the party that brought him to dance, and Minnesota Republicans may need to reconsider their campaign options leading up to 2018.

The Cook Political Report has started handicapping the 2018 governors’ races — and the track in Minnesota isn’t as fast for Democrats as one might expect, given that Mark Dayton is a popular DFL incumbent.

Cook rates Minnesota, along with Colorado, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, as “lean Democrat.” In Cook parlance, it means the DFL has an advantage but this will be a race to watch. By comparison, California, Hawaii, New York, Oregon, and Rhode Island have races that Cook deems solid or likely victories for Democrats.

According to the Cook methodology, one reason Minnesota is straddling the middle is that the governor’s seat will be an open one in 2018. A second reason is the state’s close call with choosing a Republican for president. Hillary Clinton beat president-elect Donald Trump by just 1.4 points in November. 

“…Although presidential performance is not a perfect measurement in governors races, it does play a role to assigning ratings. This is particularly true of open seats,” according to Cook writer Jennifer Duffy.

DFL party chair Ken Martin isn’t buying it. “It would be dangerous to over-read the election results of 2016 without the level of detail that will be coming shortly from the Secretary of State’s office,” he said. Martin is referring the final election report that will include a breakdown of the state's vote, precinct by precinct.

Republicans will be scouring that data as well. Trump's showing, combined with Republican victories that gave the party majority in both the Minnesota House and Senate, offers the GOP a reason to believe it can reclaim the governor’s seat after an eight-year drought.

But the DFL dominance in statewide offices represents a home-field advantage. For some potential candidates (e.g. Attorney General Lori Swanson or State Auditor Rebecca Otto), it offers a head start in terms of name recognition. For Lt. Gov. Tina Smith, it brings the ability to argue that she will continue the policies that have led to budget surpluses and low unemployment.

Then there's Tom Bakk, long-time Senate majority leader and Iron Range legislator, who is often cited as the one Democrat who can harness the Trump support, and who has an affinity for non-metro voters who can be suspicious of policies that seem to be crafted for and by the Twin Cities.

Martin won’t speculate on what kind of DFLer would be best positioned “until we get a good sense of what the Republicans are going to do.”

And until the DFL Party probes more deeply into what voters were saying. “There’s some takeaways but…. it’s too early to tell,” he said. “Was this a wholesale sea change or an anomaly?”  

It’s the same question the Minnesota Republican Party will be asking as well.