a regional party

It would be interesting to overlay this map with some quality of life factors. For example, I know Minnesota has very good ratings re: education. Minnesota also ranks high re: poverty levels.

 

I love maps like this. Where people actually live= blue. Where no one lives= red.

 

Eh

 

a)not sure you know what region means. it has nothing to do with population

b) every house district has about the same population (about 700k-800k).

 

What do your comments have to do with his post? Was his post wrong?
He made an observation about the map?

 

I actually live here in Minnesota. i can tell you exactly why it is the way it is.

Minnesota's congressional districts are very deceptive. Of the 8, two are Democratic and two are Republican. The other 4 can be called swing districts.

Of the 4 districts that lean towards a party, one of the Republican districts is actually held by a Democrat. District 7 was won by Romney by a decent amount. However, it is a very heavy rural farming district and its representative, Collin Peterson, is pretty much the nation's expert on the farm bill. He also has a very moderate voting record for a Democrat. Republicans keep trying to beat him but after this election I think they've figured out that they have to wait for him to retire before they can win that district. Once he does retire you'll see the huge district in the West turn red.

Of the 4 swing districts, they are currently split among the parties. 3 of the 4 consist of Twin Cities suburbs and outlying counties. 3 of the 4 districts actually voted for Obama in the last presidential election. And even more interesting both Republican held swing districts voted for Obama in 2012. The districts held by Democrats consist of the 8th district which still consists of the heavily unionized Iron Range in Northeast Minnesota and the 1st District which is still fairly farm heavy.

The other important thing to note is that Minnesota's district are not gerrymandered. No single party has controlled the whole government during a year where districts were redrawn in over 20 years. The result is that Minnesota's districts have been largely untouched. Consequently our districts here are far more competitive than the average.

The DFL (the Democratic Party here) did lose the state house on Tuesday so Republicans didn't get entirely shut out here. But yes, Republicans failed to capture any new Congressional seats here (which surprised me since I fully expected them to take the 8th district) and they were shut out of all the statewide seats.

I think the more interesting thing is comparing Minnesota to Wisconsin. Both states vote almost identically in presidential elections. However, Wisconsin is run almost entirely by Republicans while Minnesota is run almost entirely by Democrats. Scott Walker cruised to a win in Wisconsin while here in Minnesota Mark Dayton and Al Franken really had no trouble at all. The Republican Party here is also pretty poorly run. I think that's a big part of the problem as well.

 

They are the Vermont of the Midwest. Any state that would elect al frankin and jesse ventura has issues. They also are the only state that voted for Mondale in '84........

 

he inferred that the red represents less of the population, which is wrong.

 

True, but even Tennessee was smart enough not to vote for Al Gore in 2000. The funny thing with Minnesota is that Republicans always have high hopes of winning it each election. At least the republicans have chances with states like Iowa and Wisconsin. Even the Northeast swings and elects republicans every now and then.

 

Republicans have had plenty of success in Minnesota. Minnesota hadn't elected a Democratic governor in 20 years until Mark Dayton won in 2010. (and he won mainly because the Independence Party siphoned votes from the Republicans). Plus Republicans could easily hold a majority of the Congressional districts here. District 7 will go Republican once Collin Peterson retires and the Republicans won District 8 in 2010 before losing it in 2012. Not to mention Republicans had District 1 until 2006. You could see the Republicans winning as many as 6 out of the 8 districts here in a good year. And if the Republicans weren't stupid enough to piss off Collin Peterson before the election started, he might've just retired this year and handed them District 7.

Republicans also won both houses of the legislature in 2010. There's no question that Minnesota leans Democratic but Republicans can do just fine here. It just so happens that the Republican Party of Minnesota is run by idiots and for a while was hijacked by Ron Paul nuts. As a result, they've really struggled with candidate recruitment and fundraising.

 

Who is moving to Canada or France?

 

Around 65% of the voters in Minnesota voted AGAINST Jesse Ventura. The problem is that Minnesota is a no runoff state.

 

Except that the red in Minnesota's case is a lot of the Twin Cities metro area where most people live.

 

A couple of elections ago, my son was working for the guy trying to be the Republican to run against Peterson. He was his main speech writer. Once they won the Republican nomination, the National Republican party came in and essentially took over the campaign and swept most of the workers away.

 

People who threaten to do that generally don't know much about Canadian or French politics.

Edit: But funny nonetheless.

 

That makes me really disappointed to read it, and that really is unfortunate, but it doesn't surprise me at all.