This begs a liveblog…

Present are rep Swedinski and his back ups, senators Damn and Weber here at the Marshall YMCA.

Swedinski notes volume of DFLers in audience, asks for heads of organizations and providers (he’s hoping they’re allies) to testify first. First and second testifiers promptly recite “regulation” line.

2nd testifier now tags on blame that centers are stealing their biz. Weber chimes in that schools offering day care are the problem… Hey GOP, if public schools are so inefficient, how come your sacred private enterprises can’t compete with them?

Next speaker from Tracy blames regulation.

GOPers having more trouble with tech… Mic dies and they’re lost. No wonder they can’t handle the “inter tubes”!

GOP “solution”= the slippery slope to South Dakota standards…

Don’t these staged “testifiers” have anything to blame but regulations?

Almost a half hour wasted on GOPers intro and staged  syncopants… Good thing my MacBook has 85% battery left!

Couple more blaming regs, all day K, and public schools doing pre-school for 4 year olds. Swedinski could have just shown us a tape from the legislative hearings and saved us the trouble…

Still haven’t heard from a single consumer.

Finally had a provider let slip that they need a pay raise… Bravo!

Weber asking a previous testifier a question (must be running out of planted testifiers).

Let me sum up: We have a bunch of underpaid and overworked day care providers here. And what are they complaining about… Not pay, but regulations!

Almost an hour in, and the GOP looks to have run out of shills.

YMCA (our hosts) rep testifies: They want to do day care, but don’t have funding to do it right.

Finally, the DFL voices of reason get to speak. Lyon county DFL chair Ben Walker is first, tanks day care providers.

Day care provider who probably isn’t a GOP plant complained of low food reimbursement.

YMCA Rep says they’d like to do training for child care providers. Swedinski shill from Tracy whines that would be too much regulation. YMCA rep suggests training local trainers.

Finally a provider asks what GOP reps are going to do. Chris quotes bill I can’t find, then blames lawyers. Weber admits they have no solutions, whines about Human Services funding growth. Blames pre-K for problems… Sorry Sen. Weber, schools are a big part of the solution!

Weber tries to demonize DHS, provider disagrees. Weber thanks everyone for coming… It’s 8:19, building’s open ’til 9.

Dahms says there have been other listening sessions… How come the public wasn’t informed. Then thanks us for coming, without hearing our testimony. Swedinski shuts down the meeting after hearing only one DFL testifier.

Good night.

 

 

 

 

The city of Spencer in Clay County, way northwestern Iowa had the dusty feel of a cow town in today’s gusty winds, but they put on one of the biggest and best county fairs in the country… Where better to gauge how much longer deep red IA4 will tolerate too many term bigot and congress member Steve King. First encounter was with the local GOP party contingent in their booth, they seemed lonely enough to even talk to a democrat. Having not seen a single republican lawn sign on the way down, I confirmed that they have plenty of signs and it’s legal to post them. Next building over I found the local democrat’s booth, they were too busy with Iowa voters to talk long. They’re continually running out of signs, lit, etc.. and are quite enthusiastic about their challenger for IA4, baseball player and paralegal J.D. Scholten.

After seeing more tractors than you’ll find this side of the Big Iron show in Fargo I found the best lunch deal was a $3 slice o’ pizza and was enjoying it when an old guy carrying a Scholten lawn sign plopped down at the next table. I struck up a conversation, turns out he’s a retired farmer and he wants a congress member that will represent the district, which he feels King hasn’t… When an old white guy doesn’t think King represents him, King is in trouble!

Made another round through the tractors and queeried the New Holland dealers about their $700 price for a service manual with no success, with their attitude I’ll just wait them out and buy a manual at one of their inevitable bankruptcy auctions. On the way out of the fairgrounds I went by the party’s booths again to confirm my previous impression… Yup, democrats doing a land office business while the republicans struggled to stay awake.

If there’s so little enthusiasm for immigrant bashing King, is any republican incumbent safe?

Emerson College’s latest Iowa polling has dem gov candidate Hubbell up by 5%, but the big story is in western Iowa where in southwest Iowa’s 3rd congressional district, a “lean democratic” pickup according to 538’s “deluxe” forecast where dem challenger Axne trails incumbent GOPer Young by 16%, way outside the MOE. The good news is that in northwest Iowa incumbent bigot GOPer King has only a 10% within the MOE lead on dem challenger Scholten. I was in IA4 last week and noted a definite lack of enthusiasm for King. Hope to be on the ground in the district again tomorrow and will report back as well as process the poll’s internals.

CD7 Outreach Officers update, 8/8/18: Mapping diversity to improve campaign effectiveness

This week I want to share some useful websites for accessing census demographic data. Most of us are familiar with the tried and true tools the census bureau has given us like Quick Facts and American Fact Finder. They work fine, but faster tools are now available that will paint a picture of the diversity of a district and drill right down to the “turf” level in seconds.

The first of these tools I found were pretty geeky, I’ll get to one in a moment. Then I stumbled across https://statisticalatlas.com/about . Click on the menu, the 3 bars in the circle to the left of “Statistical Atlas”, then click on Minnesota in the U.S. map. A Minnesota map will appear and above it you can click on congressional, senate, or house districts as well as other geopolitical options. I clicked on 22A because it’s a competitive district thanks to our candidate Cheniqua Johnson and we share it with CD1. Young voters are most likely to vote democratic, so on the right I click on “age and sex” and OMG, the data overfloweth! We are given bar charts and graphs and down at the bottom of the page maps of the percentage of the population children comprise. I’m interested in finding new voters, so I click on “college” above maps at the bottom, producing this map: https://statisticalatlas.com/state-lower-legislative-district/Minnesota/State-House-District-22B/Age-and-Sex . Statewide, College age (18-21) people are a bit less than 4% of the population, but the top map shows Nobles county has about half again that. The next map sorted by county subdivision doesn’t tell us a lot, there’s a couple townships with over the double the average of college aged but when that “double” is 15 or 25 people the data is statisticly unreliable. Lets look at the next map down, “by tract”- That red area is the west side of Worthington, place your cursor on it and it’ll give you college age population percentages for individual census tracts. I’ll save you the trouble of drilling down to just Worthington, here’s the maps: https://statisticalatlas.com/place/Minnesota/Worthington/Age-and-Sex .The bottom couple maps fillet the data down to about doorknock “turf” size, allowing campaigns to prioritize which blocks to knock. You can use the site to map and chart other data, for example, here’s non hispanic white population in 22A: https://statisticalatlas.com/state-lower-legislative-district/Minnesota/State-House-District-22B/Race-and-Ethnicity . You can click on different groups and the site will map them out for you. I better quit now, or we’ll be at this all night!

And for you serious data geeks, check out http://proximityone.com/ . That’s where I found the stats on CD7 and the individual legislative districts that I’ve used, and I still get lost in that data maze. Data geeks, if you wander in there and we don’t hear from you after a few days we’ll send out a search party, who will probably get lost too!

Respectfully submitted, Dyna Sluyter

CD7 Outreach Officers update, 9/4/18: Using election data to target precincts

A MN house district has about 20,000 doors, and about now our campaigns are probably wondering which ones to door knock or mail to, especially given that the VAN database isn’t real useful out here. ’18 is a year for turnout strategies, so we need to find our “drop out” DFL voters. Let’s start with the precinct results for the DFL “high water mark” with the current districts, the ’12 general from the SOS: https://www.sos.state.mn.us/media/1364/chapter_10-minnesota_votes.pdf Find results for the districts you want, I usually print out the pages I need. We’re looking for precincts with a majority of DFL voters, so we’re going to use Colin Peterson’s and Tim Walz’s results because they’ve run in each election so we have comparable stats and they’re usually our best performing candidates. For our first cut, I’m going to pick out the SD16 precincts Colin and Tim won with at least Colin’s share of the CD7 vote, 60%. For brevity we’re only looking at precincts where Colin or Tim got over 100 votes, resulting in a list of 18 strong DFL precincts.

Next we want to find which of these precincts had a lot of DFL voters stay home in ’14 and ’16, so download the same precinct level data for ’14: https://www.sos.state.mn.us/media/1353/chapter-10_mn-votes-2015.pdf . Colin’s CD7 vote total dropped 34% between ’12 and ’14 and Tim’s in CD1 36%, so for the next cut lets look at our 18 highly DFL precincts for those with more than a 35% drop off for Colin or Tim, yielding a list of 9 precincts. But what about ’16, and shouldn’t we be comparing presidential election years? Good point, the SOS doesn’t have the “Blue Book” out for that year yet, so we’ll have to go to the bottom of the web page here for precinct level data: https://electionresults.sos.state.mn.us/20161108 . Colin and Tim’s vote totals were each down 12% from ’12 to ’16, so we’ll take another cut at our 18 strong DFL precincts and filtering out those with more than that 12% drop from ’12 to ’16. That filter gives us 14 DFL precincts with below average turnout in ’16, Two precincts that made the ’14 list improved turnout enough to miss the 2016 list, but we’ll include them in the final list anyway.

So our first cut reduced our list of 20,000 doors to knock down to about 3,000 doors in the most DFL leaning 18 precincts. The second and third cuts dropped only 2 precincts, so that filter probably isn’t worth using here. But about 80% of those doors are in the more DFL leaning 16A side, which points out that you can adjust your “cut” points to whatever suits your needs, so in 16A you might sort out a higher priority tier of precincts that went 70% or more for Colin in ’12, and 16B you might make the first cut at 50% vote for our DFL congress member in ’12 rather than the 60% we used. You can also use these methods to target precincts rich in swing voters, in higher turnout elections like 2020 we’ll be targeting them more. Even if the VAN is lacking much voter survey data for your district it will have basic public data like voting history which you can use in conjunction with these election results derived data to fine tune your campaign priorities. And if you’ve got better number crunching software than I have, much of the SOS data is available in .xls and other formats. Enjoy! In a future report I’’ll explain how to use census data to find even more DFL voters.

Respectfully submitted, Dyna Sluyter

As of 5:38 pm EST 538’s “deluxe” congressional race predictions show 19 districts as “tossups”. Darn near half those districts, 8 in all, are not in the ‘burbs as expected- they’re at least 20% rural, and 3 of those districts are over 50% rural. Two of those districts, MN1 and MN7, are typical- A vast farming region with a “micropolitan statistical area” of at least 100,000 and several regional centers of over 10,000 population. 270 to win’s senate pundits rankings tell a similar story with 5 of the 8 races rated “toss up” in states that are over 20% rural. Looking at the pundits picks of the “toss up” governors races we find 7 of 12 are in states that are over 20% rural.

Living in southwest Minnesota within a days drive of 7 of these “tossup” congressional races, 3 of the senate races, and 4 of the gov races make these exciting times, and I hope to report on them all. But as a democrat, I’m worried- Our party has barely begun relearning how to win in rural areas. Here in Minnesota we may flip the GOP held suburban 2 and 3rd districts only to lose the DFL held more rural 1st and 8th districts. It could get worse… 538’s “lite” polls only forecast  shows rural CD7, hybrid CDs 1 and 8, and suburban CDs 2 and 3 as tossups. With that outcome in the middle of a “blue wave” the MN DFL party could lose 3 districts to the GOP while gaining only one or two suburban GOP districts.

That’s why democrats can only become the governing party by winning in rural areas!

CD7 Outreach Officers Report for September 2018:

There are reasons why we’re working so hard to elect DFLers… Reasons like the refugee children and parents that Trump’s ICE separated at the border and imprisoned in makeshift concentration camps. Reasons like the thousands of born in America hispanic citizens that Trump and the GOP are imprisoning and deporting, alleging that their Texas Birth Certificates are fake. Reasons like the transgender citizens whose passports have been revoked, one of whom is now stranded abroad and will probably have to seek asylum. And even more reasons like Trump’s threat to annex Tribal Nations and invalidate human rights laws.

And hard work it will be- Take a look at the pundit’s prognostications at https://www.270towin.com/2018-senate-election-predictions/ . The GOP is almost guaranteed 49 seats and with Pence as the GOP tie breaker we need to “run the table” to win the senate, a long shot. 538 has the best congressional forecasts out, here’s their polls only “lite” forecast: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2018-midterm-election-forecast/house/#lite . As of now that forecast gives us a 58% chance of retaking congress, now take a look at the races in each MN district- Yikes, the forecast shows us barely leading in a toss up race in CD3 but trailing the GOP in CDs 1,2,7, and 8! Now try the classic forecast which adds more non polling data- CDs 2 and 3 are leaning DFL, but we’re trailing in a toss up in CD1 and CD8 leans GOP, but at least CD7 is forecast as likely DFL. More data is always better, so click on the “Deluxe” button- The GOP is barely leading in toss up CDs 1 and 8, while DFLers lead in toss up CD3 and CD2 leans DFL. 538 has flagged 18 congressional races as “toss ups”, and 3 are in Minnesota- More than any other state, far as I can tell. Add our two senate races and Minnesota will play a bigger role than any other state in taking back the federal legislative branch… But we can’t accomplish that if we pick up two suburban CDs while losing two or even three rural CDs! Same with the legislative races- Winning the 11 GOP held state house races in suburban districts Hillary carried will only tie us with the GOP for control of the state house, and the GOP has designs on the 7 DFL held districts Trump won… Clearly we need to win rural races as well as suburban ones!

How do we win? Each of these 4 or 5 competitive CDs is predicted to be won or lost by a margin of 3% or less, we need a bit over 100,000 votes to win a CD in a non presidential election, so we only need to find a few thousand more DFL voters and get them to the polls. CD7 has 17,000 newly eligible young voters who need affordable higher education, 15,000 native american voters whose tribal sovereignty is threatened, 12,000 immigrant voters targeted by Trump and the GOP’s “ethnic cleansing”, and 44,000 veterans who have earned benefits Trump and the GOP are trying to steal. That’s our margin of victory that will help win countless legislative races too, now let’s get out and get them to the polls!

Respectfully submitted, Dyna Sluyter

The primary is over, my candidate won, and I’m as (sometimes) welcome again as ever at most DFL venues, ‘cept for one holdout FB page. Meanwhile, looks like the state DFL party blew their wad on their losing candidates… Word has it that they won’t be staffing our local campaign office, and their share of the rent is overdue. Meanwhile, competitive state house districts in the ‘burbs are being carpet bombed with DFL funded mailers…

So apparently the DFL ain’t broke, they’ve just forgotten rural Minnesota like usual. The pattern has become predicable- We hear a lot of talk about how they’re going to compete everywhere, our rural candidates work their tushes off, we parade and doorknock and phone for them, and blow our local DFL budget on a campaign office. Then the DFL dumps it’s dollars pretty much within the metro and DFLers pretty much lose again outstate.

Having observed this DFL failure for the half dozenth time in rural MN I’ve learned to take a cue from the state party leadership… If they’ve abandoned our rural campaigns, I’m not about to doorknock ’til I drop. So last weekend with no campaign events on the calendar I headed to Galena, Illinois to commune with some of my motorcycling buddies from Wisconsin, Illinois, and even Florida. Had a great weekend, and was delighted to see a dem campaign office open in Monroe, Wisconsin. Half of Iowa’s CDs, the WI gov seat, and MN1 I traveled though are all in play and the dems are active in all, though the MN1 candidate could use more signage.

Meanwhile on the other side of Illinois the DNC was meeting… WTH, can’t they get their business done in years we’re not busy with elections? Their major much ballyhooed accomplishment was trimming the power of the superdelegates. That means the Bernie Bros will have one less conspiracy (theory) to whine about and the party hacks will have to rely on traditional hacks like caucus manipulation to get their losing candidates nominated. I’ll put out a “how to hack a caucus” tutorial before the Iowa caucuses for the newbies…

Minnesotans, prepare to be polled into oblivion, what with 2 senate races, a gov race, and half your congressional seats in play. Iowans, you won’t get a break either, and even the Dakotas are in play, or at least Trump is worried they are. So expect darn near daily polls.

This poll is from Suffolk University, rated a B+ pollster by 538. They show Tina Smith 7% ahead of GOPer Housley, winning the metro but losing outstate. Klobuchar is +19% and leads everywhere. Walz is +5% statewide over Johnson with big leads in the metro, ties Johnson in the south, and trails by only -3% in the north.

The GOP senate candidates are having problems getting name recognition, while Johnson’s reputation precedes him and he’s over 90%. The top issue is health care most everywhere followed by the economy, with immigration down around 5th on the list. And as in previous recent polls, the gender gap is running around 20%!

Here’s the full 200+ crosstabs for the geeks and here’s the mere 7 page “toplines” summary for the rest of us. Enjoy…

 

Having received neither formal notice of my purging nor “political rehabilitation”, I went ahead and cranked out my (i)regular report:

CD7 Outreach Officers report for mid august 2018:

Not sure if I’m allowed to return from exile and again perform my duties as Outreach Officer, but nobody’s told me I can’t and it needs to get done. The primary is over, the state DFL party made the mistake of demanding support of some great endorsed candidates who didn’t have a chance, and the rifts thus created will not soon disappear. Speaking for myself being exiled by the party has reduced my trust in the state DFL leadership and discouraged me from ever again seeking party office- Why become a party officer only to be bullied and exiled merely because you preferred a different DFL candidate that the party insiders had endorsed?

Back to business… With both party’s having contested primary races the primary was a good read on the mood of the voters. Statewide about twice as many citizens voted for DFL candidates than voted for GOPers. The governor’s race was the most competitive in both parties and thus probably the best metric, and in CD7 the GOP governor candidates got only 3% more votes than our DFL candidates did- Not bad considering this is supposedly an R+12 district and there was a contested primary for the congressional endorsement on the GOP side to drive their turnout. They don’t break down the results by legislative district unless their was a contested primary there, so we don’t have much returns by district but they do break the results down by county and they look good for us- We beat the republican vote in Beltrami County by 20%, by an even bigger margin in Clay County, just about tied in Kandiyohi County, and narrowly lost Douglas and Lyon county by single digit margins. We also got more total votes than the GOP in the governors race in Kittson, Polk, Red Lake, Norman, Mahnomen, Traverse, Grant, Big Stone, Stevens, Pope, Swift, Lac Que Parle, Chippewa, and Yellow Medicine counties! This is great news for several of our down ballot state house candidates, pointing to several districts that we have the potential to win. Going back to the statewide races it takes about a million votes to win statewide, and with our high primary turnout we are already over halfway there.

In other matters our State Central Committee refused to join in the GOP’s virtual lynching of Keith Ellison and formally endorsed him for Attorney General. The work of the CHAT committee to deal with intra party harassment, etc. was expedited and they were empowered to begin inquisitions, purges, or whatever formal term they’re more likely to call them. Having witnessed the Outreach and Inclusion Committee attempt this function in the past I’m worried- The one case we heard seemed more an attempt to remove an officer to shift control of a local party unit to an outside group than to remedy the admitted act of insensitivity. I thus fear the CHAT process if not carefully controlled will be used to remove and silence we more mainstream DFLers from greater Minnesota.

And finally, just in case the DFL leadership does silence my voice in party forums, I’ve started a new blog at http://www.sassy.democrat . I’ll be crossposting these reports there as well as other news and my two bit opinions there with a focus on rural small “d” democratic politics.

Respectfully submitted, Dyna Sluyter