Analyzing the Election.    I thought I would let things marinate for a couple of weeks and take a close look at the election results before putting my thoughts into cyberspace.  Once I got through all the national banter, I simply came to the conclusion that this was one very odd election and really, how could it not be.  CoVID-19 has defined American life since March and the ripple effects of the virus clearly affected how Americans voted and, probably more often than not, how they voted.

I am no longer down in the gearbox of political campaigns so my observations are, for the most part, well above the fray, but I did not expect the Blue Wave--either in Minnesota or the United States--that much of the media thought was in the offing given the poll numbers spewed pretty much every day down the stretch during the election season.  Neither was I surprised that the margin between President Trump and President-elect Biden was not close to margin described in many of those polls.  I can't remember which SEE ZOOM event I was speaking at where I predicted there was going to be a lot of ticket-splitting.  While I expected President-elect Biden to prevail both in Minnesota and in the Electoral College, I didn't think he would have significant coattails.  Looking at the presidential numbers in Minnesota, Biden's spread was only one-half percentage point lower than then-President Obama's spread in 2012 (Obama-7.69%/Biden-7.10%) and the 2012 was a big swing election for the DFL in Minnesota that year with the Senate DFL picking up 9 seats and the House DFL picking up 12 to seize the majority in both House of the Legislature.

"How can that be?" one might ask (you might not, but someone might).  The 2012 wave election for the DFL followed the 2010 wave election that put the Republicans in control of both legislative bodies for the first time since the early-1970s.  In between elections, there was a government shutdown as the Legislature did not reach accord with the Governor until July.  Further, new legislative boundaries were drawn after the 2010 census, which always adds an X-factor to election season.  I think the lesson is that one has to look at every election season in the context of what may be happening across-the-board.  Clearly, the pandemic was on the minds of many Minnesotans as they voted, but with a wide variety of opinions about how it should be addressed really prevented a wave from developing on one side or the other on the issue.  I would argue--even though this article from Sunday's StarTribune argues otherwise Democrats debate how Minneapolis' 'defund the police' movement played in elections Centrists contend slogan cost the party House seats in Minnesota, nationally.--that the issues surrounding the discussions regarding public safety in the wake of George Floyd's death also didn't fuel a wave in one direction or the other.  It does appear that messaging surrounding public safety favored Republicans, but it had a greater effect outstate than in the suburbs.  Likewise, the CoVID-19-related issues appear to have had a greater effect in the suburbs than in outstate districts.  For those of you who recall Peter Leatherman's presentation to our September SEE meeting, those were the two issues that were most on the minds of Minnesotans and it appears the clash of those two issues and the partisan divide over them were counterweights that put a ceiling on the other side's gains.

I am not saying that the rhetoric around police reform didn't affect races, but here is an example as to why I don't believe it was as great as stated in the referenced article.  DFL Senator Matt Little lost to Republican Senator-elect Zach Duckworth in a Lakeville area seat, but just to the east Republican Senator Dan Hall was unseated by Senator-elect Lindsay Port.  Just south of the seat where Republican Senator Warren Limmer held off DFL challenger Bonnie Westlin, DFLer Ann Johnson Stewart easily won over Republican Greg Pulles to replace retiring Republican Senator Paul Anderson.  I am probably going to keep hitting this nail until I wreck the board, but each race has to be viewed in its own particular context and the qualities of each candidate often have as much to do with the result as any over-arching theme being promoted.

I was reluctant to make a prediction as to which party, both in Minnesota and nationally, would retain control of the respective legislative bodies.  I remember saying several times that I could envision any combination and I wasn't surprised to see the status quo maintained albeit with tighter margins both in St. Paul and Washington, D.C.  The DFL had a net gain of one seat in the Minnesota Senate, picking up the two suburban seats I mentioned above along with the seat in St. Cloud (more on that later).  The  Republicans picked up five seats in House (with a recount taking place on the Iron Range that could give them one more, although it's unlikely).  The Senate was where most of the attention was placed in media conversations, given the DFL only had to have a net gain of two seats to take control.  They did pick up three seats, but could not hold on to Senator Matt Little's seat in Lakeville or Senator Dan Sparks' seat in the Austin/Albert Lea area, leaving them one short.  The Republican gains in the House were interesting in that three came from outside the metropolitan area and two in the outer ring suburbs.  In many election cycles, close races determine who controls the Legislature and often times, the close races all fall on one side of the political divide.  That was not the case in 2020, each side won its share of close races.

A little bit more about St. Cloud.  In 2006, then-incumbent Tarryl Clark won the seat in a DFL-wave election by over 3,500 votes.  John Pederson won the seat (open after Clark's decision not to seek re-election) by 460 votes during the Republican-wave election of 2010.  Pederson held the seat comfortably by just under 2,000 votes during the 2012 DFL-wave election.  In 2016, the seat was open again after Pederson decided not to run and Republican Jerry Relph defeated DFLer Dan Wolgamott by 142 votes in a year that was kinder to Republicans at the legislative level (though arguably not a wave).  This year, DFLer Aric Putnam defeated Senator Relph by 316 votes.  As I hit the nail once again (I hope it's a sturdy board), one can see from these results that it is often difficult to predict what will happen in individual legislative districts from noise that is happening well above these frays.

My final thought is that Minnesota has seen its share of wave elections over the past twenty-plus years.  I would argue that we first saw this with former Governor Ventura's victory in 1998.  While not a definitive wave, it brought a lot of new voters into the system and that had an effect on legislative control.  Minnesota's elections in 2006, 2010, 2012, 2016 (to a lesser extent as explained above), and 2018 all saw dramatic shifts in legislative composition.  That may be in the offing again depending on how the pandemic plays out and what the new legislative boundaries look like.  With divided government, we may not see a reaction to policies pursued at the legislative level because both sides will own the results of the policy discussions.  One dynamic that I've witnessed over the past decade is that when one party controls the levers of government and moves policy forward aggressively, there is an almost inevitable reaction against those enactments come next election.  Curious to see if divided government forestalls that reaction.

And finally, I do have to say something regarding President Trump.  Everyone has an opinion and here is mine (and I hope people of all stripes find this as measured as I intend it).  I view American democracy as a house and that house is always under renovation.  If anyone has ever ripped up floorboards in a house, you know that you find all kinds of surprises; some pleasant and some otherwise.  I think we have seen both under President Trump.  He has clearly energized a segment of the voting populace that had become disenchanted with the process (Democratic pollsters/consultants Ruy Teixeira and Joel Rogers saw this coming over twenty years ago in their masterful America's Forgotten Majority: Why the White Working Class Still Matters).  While some of his policies have not been particularly helpful to the white working class, President Trump has clearly channeled their anxiety and brought them back into the system.  That isn't necessarily the bad thing some think it is if the end result is a system that works better for all Americans.  The work ahead is to make certain that we create a system that sees all people and hears all voices.  That is the responsibility of all of us as participants in our democracy.  Let's keep this house standing.