Trump’s Reelection May Run Through the Iron Range

Minnesota has been shifting right for a few cycles now. The GOP has made steady gains over the last four Presidential elections and President Trump came within a hair of winning the state in 2016 - just one and a half a percentage points from victory. 23,000 votes cast differently would have swung the state, and the place those votes are most likely to come from is unexpected: The Iron Range.

Here's some context. In 2016 Minnesota's counties largely went red (despite the state popular vote not doing so), and the blue pockets could be distilled into two major areas: The Minneapolis Area and the Iron Range. The Minneapolis Area is your typical Democrat stronghold - a city that is densely populated, has residents working in white-collar jobs, and populated with a higher concentration of minority voters (three times as many per one hundred people as Minnesota at large).

Minnesota has been gradually reddening, but Minneapolis and the Iron Range remain blue.

But the Iron Range is not your typical Democrat stronghold, even though the region has voted reliably blue decade after decade. It's primary industry is iron mining, with a majority of residents working in thoroughly blue collar jobs. But it's exactly it's abnormality that makes it a tenuous blue stronghold.

In 2016, when running against a moderate liberal the Iron Range Mining Unions generally voted to endorse Hillary Clinton across the board, displeased (like most) with GOP Nominee Trump's behaviour. However as the Democratic Party has shifted left over the last two years, leaving a lot of miners feeling left behind, Trump's message of support for mining without hesitation has given miners reason to feel enthusiastic and even optimistic about their futures.

This has resulted in a fairly new phenomenon of Democrat Mayors in the region endorsing the President, and some of the Unions - typically solidly Democrat groups - to do so as well out of support for his mining agenda. If those gains can flip the scant 23,000 votes needed for Trump to win the state, as well as a few thousand more to make up for voters disillusioned by his Covid management, Minnesota could very plausibly go red while Michigan and Wisconsin return blue.

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The effects a red Minnesota could have on the election are serious. Trump could afford to lose Michigan, Georgia, or Pennsylvania from among the swings based on 270toWin Polling Data if he wins Minnesota and all other swing states. He could also afford to lose both Arizona and Wisconsin while winning Minnesota and other swing states, but instead of handing him a victory it would toss the election to the House (which due to the voting rules for this particular situation would probably result in a second Trump term).

But this shift to Trump doesn't mean the Iron Range is abandoning it's political roots - far from it. It's creating a new, or at least different, brand of Democrats who are more fiscally conservative and traditional in their approach to liberalism. A prime example of these types are the aforementioned plethora of Democrat Mayors in the Iron Range that have endorsed Donald Trump. And as for those Unions? Though some endorsed Trump this year they are still worker-supportive unions with liberal grounding. But in a state where 23,000 votes makes the margin "some" unions and a handful of mayors can make all the difference.