0 Shares Reddit Email

Could this be the year the Loon & Tick state finally goes red?

Can The Donald do what no other Republican has done since Tricky Dick took Minnesota in 1972?

Don’t bet the farm on it, but there is a way El Donaldo could (could!) thread the needle and pick Hillary’s pocket to the tune of 10 electoral votes.

Here’s how Team Trump could engineer the perfect storm:

1. The State of Crazy

Jesse Ventura. Al Franken. Keith X Ellison. Michele Bachmann (that’ll play well in the cements…).

History shows that the Minnesota electorate are not risk aversive if there is a potential for a big goofy payoff.

While most Minnesotan’s are descended from humorless and dour Scandinavian/German stock, it is also a populace that takes a perverse pride in living through -40 degree cold in the winter and enduring an unending assault by Mothra-sized mosquitoes in the summertime.

Minnesotan’s are a weird lot and periodically they just need to do something crazy to stay sane.

Could this be another one of those years?

2. Green versus Red in the Arrowhead Country.

Not red as in Republican. Red as in the dust from taconite and iron ore, the source of NE Minnesota’s jobs.

Imported ore from South America and steel shipped in from the Pacific Rim have caused the economy of the Iron Range to scream. Many of the iron pits are idle and new mining efforts are being held up or thwarted by wealthy tree-hugging elites from the Twin Cities who see the mineral-rich lands in proximity to the Boundary Waters as an extension of their personal playground.

Labor has always been king on The Iron Range. Back in the 1930’s these folks voted a Real Deal Communist, John Bernard, into the US House of Representatives under the guise of the Farmer-Labor party.

Up on Da Range, being a commie wasn’t a bug, it was a feature.

Rangers are a proud and feisty bunch. In 2010 long time CD-8 rep Jim Oberstar was booted after 30+ years in Congress when his globalist elitism and sense of entitlement became the focus of the campaign.

If Trump can tap into the northeast’s simmering anger over lost jobs and the condescension of the finger-waging Twin Cities “packsackers” who smugly know what’s best for all the jack-pine savages Up North, he could steal the Range’s votes or possibly convince them to sit the election out.

Either way, a major Democratic party stronghold is taken out of play.

3. Make a play for the Pissed Off Hipsters

Bernie Sanders won the DFL presidential caucuses going away. There’s the Left, then there is the Minnesota Left.

Voting for Bernie was the cool revolutionary thing to do.

Voting for Hillary because she’s an entitled woman? Meh.

Look, Trump is never going to carry the Young and the Hip, but by subjecting HRC to a constant barrage of ridicule and humiliation The Don could suppress enough of the Twin Cities vote to make the game close.

(Election Day tell: if DFL turnout is down in Minneapolis and St. Paul proper, we could be talking upset here.)

4. The North Suburbs and the I-94 Corridor

This was Jesse Ventura’s sweet spot. This area is home to thousands of independent-minded blue collar and trades folks. Solidly culturally and economically conservative, they form a natural base for The Donald.

This is where Team Trump needs Monster Voter Turnout.

The Feather-Boa’ed One ran away with the vote here.

Look for Trump to swing through Anoka County to fire up the voters who haven’t darkened the inside of a polling place since 1998.

The Bottom Line

If (big if) everything outlined above comes together then Trump has a long-shot chance of winning the North Star State.

There is no way Trump tops 46-47% of the vote under perfect conditions.

He’ll need an assist from the Green Party. They’ll need to siphon off 3-5% of Hillary’s vote for Donald in order to squeak by with a razor-thin victory, probably by around 3,000 to 5,000 votes. (Just enough to be outside the DFL Margin of Vote Fraud.)

If Minnesota goes Red, it’s Landslide City.

Who knows, this might be the year the Vikings win the Super Bowl, too…