At high noon today Minnesota’s political geeks sat cross eyed before banks of computer screens, pounding on mice and keyboards in anticipation of the new congressional and legislative district maps. We then proceeded to waste a perfectly lovely warm February afternoon digesting and discussing the resulting minor changes in political geography.
Did anything really change?
On a macro level the lines wiggled a bit mostly to allow for growing urban population vs. rural flight from those republican strongholds. Thus all but my home Congressional District 7 (CD7), became a percent or so more democratic but not enough to change the results of the last election, and R+ double digit CD7 is a lost cause or long term project depending on who you ask anyways.
But the democracy is in the details, most notably Minnesota’s 3 most populous Tribal Nations being united and moved into CD8 and Senate District (SD) 2. CD8 still leans republican and the Duluth “environmentalists” who dominate the district will no doubt tick off the miners and keep it republican, but the new SD2 is now competitive along with House District (HD) 2A and 2B within the SD. On the other end of the state another minority opportunity district was borne, HD15B which takes in the immigrant heavy stretch along Minnesota Highway 60 from Worthington to St.James. While the counties of this district lean republican, the cities like Worthington have voted democratic in some of the last few elections. and while we have no declared candidate, the republicans have no incumbent. I’ve been advocating for this minority opportunity district for months and for the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor (DFL) party to do some serious organizing there for years, and sadly true to form they’ll probably blow this opportunity again.
A few other long shot opportunities in CD7 have been enhanced by redistricting- In the old Farmer-Labor stronghold triangle running from Breckinridge to almost St.Cloud, southwest to around Marshall, and back north along the Dakota border are a bunch of counties that Senator Amy Klobuchar won in 2018. While a long shot, that means a democrat can win here and a few have already announced their candidacy. But the DFL Party and outside democratic groups are risk adverse and will probably instead spend their $$$ trying to hold on to HD4B on the outskirts of Moorhead which leans republican and the incumbent DFL representative is retiring. Or maybe they’ll surrender that district without a fight, given that the suburbs are their preferred political battlegrounds.
So after all the drama of redistricting not much has changed other than the Minnesota becoming the odd percent more democratic, and a few minority opportunity districts appearing that the DFL Party will probably waste anyways…
Sassy Democrat 