Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith defeated Republican challenger Jason Lewis, protecting a Democratic seat as her party holds out hope of capturing the Senate majority.
After some polls early in the fall suggested this might be a close race, Smith won comfortably with 49.2% of the vote. She beat Lewis by 6 percentage points.
Minnesota has not sent a Republican to the Senate since 2002, and even that was somewhat of a fluke. Norm Coleman, then the popular mayor of St. Paul, the state capital, had mounted a credible challenge to Sen. Paul Wellstone but was trailing until the Democratic incumbent died in a plane crash while flying around the state to campaign. Coleman went on to defeat Democrat Walter Mondale, the former vice president and ex-Minnesota senator, who was recruited out of retirement to take Wellstone’s place on the ballot. Coleman was ousted six years later by Democrat Al Franken.
This is part and parcel of Minnesota’s history as a solidly Democratic state.
Voters there have supported a Republican for president just once in the past 80 years, backing Richard Nixon over Democratic Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota in 1972. But Minnesota has started behaving more like a swing state recently. President Trump came within 1.5 percentage points of winning the state’s 10 Electoral College votes in 2016.
Trump’s support comes from white working-class voters on the Iron Range, a stretch of rural territory across northeastern Minnesota dotted with mining communities. Blue-collar backing for the president has translated into support for Republicans running down ballot as well — and it explains why Lewis has given Smith such a spirited run, despite the incumbent’s strong support in the suburbs in the Twin Cities.
Smith was the Minnesota’s lieutenant governor when she was appointed to the Senate to succeed Franken, who was forced to resign amid allegations that he committed sexual misconduct years ago when he was a professional comedian and actor. She entered the final days of the campaign against Lewis with a lead of 6.3 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics average of recent polls.
Lewis lost his suburban Minneapolis House seat in 2018, a victim of declining support for the GOP in the suburbs since Trump was elected four years ago.
Late last month, Lewis suffered a hernia and was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery. After a two-night stay, he was discharged and returned to campaigning.
