Last week’s ’21 off year elections were a wake up call, even more so as the geeks dig deeper into the data and tell us that the new Dem majority in the ‘burbs may not be a permanent one. And worse yet, in rural Virginia the winning republican candidate for governor ran even stronger than Trump. Thus we have a preview of the republican’s path to victory in Minnesota- Stem the blue shift in the ‘burbs while improving republican voter turnout in rural Minnesota and using the “progressive” platform to wedge more independents into voting republican. That’s a viable strategy- While the DFL has CD5 that gave not even 20% of their votes to Trump and provided Biden’s statewide margin of victory and then some, if the republicans can turn CD7 alone into as successful a voting block for them as CD5 is for the democrats and improve their turnout from around 70% in CD7 to the mid 80s the DFL draws in CD5, Governor Walz and the rest of the statewide ’22 races are a tossup.
How do we win next years elections with these trends working in the republicans favor?
The electoral battle field has clearly shifted from GOTV in heavily democratic CDs 4&5 and persuasion in the ‘burbs to preventing republican landslides in rural CD7 where a 200,000+ vote republican margin could match the DFL’s similar margins in CD5, and no doubt DFL inaction would let the republicans achieve similar landslides in the rural parts of CDs 1,6,&8.
So what’s our strategy?
The traditional DFL “door knock ’til you drop” strategy doesn’t work well in spread out rural areas, though it can be useful in high DFL index low turnout areas like Moorhead. The republican strategy has been to demonize democrats with the “progressives” latest and wackiest sound bites, which unfortunately they’re all to willing to supply. We have to correct that message, telling our story- We are hunters, parents, “gear heads”, farmers, educators, workers, etc.. Every parade and maybe tractor pulls too are opportunities to rebuild the real image of us democrats with flags, tractors, classic cars, trucks, motorcycles, veterans, and maybe a catapult too… While the republicans try to gin up their base and wedge away independents with caricatures of democrats, we present the real democrats and win over the rural swing voters that polling tells us are just like us- women, seniors concerned for their health, union members, educators, minorities and immigrants, etc..
Then we back up these positive impressions of democrats with ruthless social media campaigns. On the positive side, we provide one stop DFL campaign organizing, support group, and maybe swap shop too online communities. On the other side, we expose the lies of the republican candidates and turn their social media into political disaster areas… Have you seen “Dr. Death” Scott Jensen’s twitter account? With high speed internet becoming more common and CGI cheaper, we can produce some Wellstone quality YouTube and cable ads on a budget… Like maybe a Ken doll playing Scott Jensen in a jacked up coal rolling Trump flag waving model pickup crashing into the ditch, then gets rescued by cheerful DFLer dolls in a model minivan?
I’d hoped for an easy campaign, but we’re seriously at risk of losing everything we accomplished in 2018 and 2020 so we can’t sit this one out. I’m all in, gonna be back on the campaign trail with the motorcycle and sidecar the Lt. Governor likes, or maybe a tractor, or maybe a big farm truck… I’m partial to old Macks.
But however we roll through this campaign, we’re all in for another DFL victory!
Sassy Democrat 