Minneapolis
Most political observers, even those who foresee an anti-Trump Democratic landslide, think the Republicans’ House majority will be reduced but not lost. The Republican majority has grown to the point there are very few seats the GOP could pick up, especially if this is a year in which the Democrats win the White House. Even should Republicans win the presidential election, they are unlikely to make net gains in the next Congress.
There are some exceptions to this, and one of the most notable could be in the remote northeastern Minnesota border district known as “the Range.”
That is the Minnesota 8th Congressional District, which is witnessing a rerun of the 2014 race between Democratic-Farmer-Labor (or DFL, the Democratic party in Minnesota) incumbent Rick Nolan and Republican businessman Stewart Mills. Two years ago the contest was very close, with Nolan winning by about 3,700 votes. This year’s political circumstances in MN-8 are quite different, however, and could produce an upset.
The Range is historically an ethnic working-class district with a populist political character, but its politics are changing. After World War II, the 8th District was reliably Democratic and, together with the increasingly liberal “Twin Cities” St. Paul and Minneapolis, overcame Republican majorities in the suburbs and rural districts. Senators Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale enjoyed decades of liberal hegemony in the state.
That political dominance ended in 1978 when Republicans swept the top statewide races in upset wins for governor and two U.S. Senate seats (the rare occasion of two Senate seats in the same cycle was precipitated by Mondale’s 1976 election as vice president and Humphrey’s 1978 death). Even in the year of this “Minnesota massacre,” the 8th District and the Twin Cities remained reliably DFL.
But the reliability of Minnesota 8 has begun to wane. It is one of those blue-collar Democratic districts more socially conservative than urban liberal strongholds. Like similar districts along the Great Lakes “rust belt,” it is a region altered by departing manufacturing and mining industries, rapidly changing demographics, and recently redrawn boundaries.
Nolan, who is now 72, had several advantages in the last election: He was the incumbent, the district was still rated as leaning Democratic, and his opponent had never run for office before. The DFL party had a well-organized get-out-the-vote effort and Nolan enjoyed the support of liberal national PACs, which poured advertising dollars into the race at the very end.
This time around Mills, who is 44, has his own robust get-out-the-vote effort. And though a popular Democratic presidential nominee might bring out voters for Nolan, Hillary Clinton is not popular, trailing Donald Trump in the 8th District. Nor does Nolan have a fundraising advantage: Mills’s family business sold last year, and he has all the ready cash he needs to make a race of it.
Mills has also polished his presentation. Last election he was something of a novelty: a conservative with long hair. He has since gotten a haircut. Mills has emerged as a folksy campaigner and an articulate critic of Obama administration policies, including Obamacare and the Iran nuclear deal.
One advantage Nolan does have this year: He doesn’t have to worry about a third-party candidate stealing votes from his left. (In 2014, a Green party candidate won 4 percent of the vote.) But environmental issues are still a particular challenge for the Democrat. Attempts to revive the mining industry, popular with the Range’s out-of-work miners, rile environmentalists. Nolan has tried very hard to walk the fine line between these core constituencies. But as has happened in coal country in southeastern Ohio, West Virginia, and western Pennsylvania, once-large Democratic majorities now vote heavily Republican.
It doesn’t help that Nolan—though he advertises being an avid hunter—has an “F” rating from the National Rifle Association, which has endorsed Mills.
Rick Nolan is an affable incumbent and a good campaigner, but he faces a much tougher race this cycle than in the past. The Minnesota 8th District could be one of the few places where Republicans pick up a House seat this year.
Barry Casselman writes the Prairie Editor blog.
