I Voted (Minneapolis, St. Paul, Dayton: house, to live in, residential)

[Hulsker 1856]

What a pleasure - more than that, a privilege - to live in a state that encourages voting, that understands the importance of expanding and not limiting civic engagement.

Minnesota is routinely ranked at the top of all fifty states in terms of voter turnout. It is no coincidence that a state with a highly engaged electorate ranks high in terms of a wide variety of quality-of-life metrics. One follows from the other.

So get out there and vote!

[cornsnicker3]

Definitely research and vote. It is good for society.

[InnovativeAmerican]

Good for you. The TC Metro will always keep the state blue despite the GOP picking up two U.S. House seats in rural Minnesota.

[cornsnicker3]

Originally Posted by InnovativeAmerican

Good for you. The TC Metro will always keep the state blue despite the GOP picking up two U.S. House seats in rural Minnesota.

8th District is big tent, not categorically rural. It has a little bit of everything.

[TheGrandViking]

I voted 8 times!!!! I carried 8 different boxes of cereal to disguise myself.

[Hulsker 1856]

Originally Posted by TheGrandViking

I voted 8 times!!!! I carried 8 different boxes of cereal to disguise myself.

I bought Cheerios this morning and then went back and grabbed some Raisin Bran this afternoon! They didn't require ID either time! The system is broken! Sad!

[2x3x29x41]

Originally Posted by InnovativeAmerican

Good for you. The TC Metro will always keep the state blue despite the GOP picking up two U.S. House seats in rural Minnesota.

MN-7 will - or would - very likely flip to the GOP at some point, because it has become increasingly Republican. Collin Peterson hangs on through the power of incumbency, and will probably be all right in 2020 because that's a Presidential election year. But the next time he faces a midterm when there's a Democrat in the White House, he'll be in trouble.

However, Minnesota is likely to lose a Congressional district after the 2020 census, so when 2022 rolls around it will probably have only seven districts. The map will thus change considerably, with all districts growing in size, at least per population. This is particularly true of MN-7 and MN-8, which have been the two slowest-growing districts 2010 census. Peterson's been in Congress since 1991, and every cycle he seems to consider retiring. If he doesn't decline to run in 2020, I would guess he will in 2022 when (if) the new MN-7 comes into being radically different than it is now (for one, it'll be a lot bigger).

It will be interesting to see how that all pans out.

[InnovativeAmerican]

Originally Posted by 2x3x29x41

MN-7 will - or would - very likely flip to the GOP at some point, because it has become increasingly Republican. Collin Peterson hangs on through the power of incumbency, and will probably be all right in 2020 because that's a Presidential election year. But the next time he faces a midterm when there's a Democrat in the White House, he'll be in trouble.

However, Minnesota is likely to lose a Congressional district after the 2020 census, so when 2022 rolls around it will probably have only seven districts. The map will thus change considerably, with all districts growing in size, at least per population. This is particularly true of MN-7 and MN-8, which have been the two slowest-growing districts 2010 census. Peterson's been in Congress since 1991, and every cycle he seems to consider retiring. If he doesn't decline to run in 2020, I would guess he will in 2022 when (if) the new MN-7 comes into being radically different than it is now (for one, it'll be a lot bigger).

It will be interesting to see how that all pans out.

The TC Metro continues to get bluer and thus cancel out the increasingly red rural areas. I think flipping the Iron Range might be enough to tilt the state Red, but maybe not at the rate the Twin Cities metro is growing.

[cornsnicker3]

Originally Posted by InnovativeAmerican

The TC Metro continues to get bluer and thus cancel out the increasingly red rural areas. I think flipping the Iron Range might be enough to tilt the state Red, but maybe not at the rate the Twin Cities metro is growing.

The democrats could throw the Iron Rangers a bone to keep them calm, but I think the long term prospect is a gradual shift red-ward (word?). Democrats have to balance their environmental coalition with their union working class coalition, and mining is fairly opposite to environmentalism.

[2x3x29x41]

Originally Posted by InnovativeAmerican

The TC Metro continues to get bluer and thus cancel out the increasingly red rural areas. I think flipping the Iron Range might be enough to tilt the state Red, but maybe not at the rate the Twin Cities metro is growing.

There are two different dynamics here.

One is statewide voting. There the DFL is clearly dominant, winning twenty consecutive statewide races (the last GOP win was Pawlenty in 2006). Of course, that includes some close races - Franken 2008, Dayton 2010, Clinton 2016 - so Republicans can be competitive, at least under certain circumstances. They weren't this last cycle, though.

The other is the balance of legislative districts. Here the GOP has an advantage that partly mitigates their statewide problem and that is that Democrats tend to be more concentrated in blue districts than Republicans are in red districts. For example, the reddest Congressional district in the state is MN-6, where Tom Emmer has gotten above 60% two elections in a row, and Republican presidential candidates routinely flirt with the 60% threshold. But in MN-4 (anchored on St. Paul) the DFL candidates do even better and in MN-5 (Minneapolis and surrounds) they usually get well above 70%. This phenomenon of urban districts being bluer than rural districts are red is a common one nationwide. So it is quite possible that statewide Minnesota could stay dominantly blue while the Congressional district breakdown ends up being just 4-to-3 for the DFL (in the event a seat is lost beginning in 2022).

On a related note, updated census bureau numbers are coming in strong for Minnesota.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/1...house-congress
http://worldpopulationreview.com/states/

The state grew at a clip of 0.92% in 2017, behind only South Dakota (0.93%) in the Midwest and well ahead of any other states in the region (Nebraska was next at 0.65% - no other Midwestern state hit 0.50%). Interestingly, Minnesota is now within 200,000 of Wisconsin, a state that has always been more populous and usually by a margin of several hundred thousand.

Minnesota is still on the bubble as to whether or not it loses a Congressional seat.