Andrew Myers, Republican candidate for Minnesota House District 45A, asks a voter what his priorities are while door-knocking along the east shore of Lake Minnetonka in Excelsior, Minn. (AP Photo/Nicole Neri)
By STEVE KARNOWSKI (Associated Press)
TONKA BAY, Minn. (AP) – As Andrew Myers knocked on doors in a neighborhood with a stunning view of Lake Minnetonka, the Republican state lawmaker got an earful from residents worried about crime in Minneapolis' west suburbs: the body of a woman had washed ashore a few doors down earlier in the week, and authorities had not said whether foul play was involved. Another family recently had their car stolen — another thing that never happens in Tonka Bay.
“Definitely public safety. Taxes,” resident Scott Musjerd said as he pledged his support to Myers in a district that has swung between Republicans and Democrats in recent elections.
Control of state government hangs in Minnesota — one of three states, besides Alaska and Virginia, where legislative control is divided. It's also one of the few Midwest states where Democrats have had the upper hand in recent years. Buoyed by issues like crime and midterm elections that typically favor the party outside the White House, the GOP has hopes of capturing both houses of the Legislature and unseating Democratic Gov. Tim Walz.
A red wave here could mean rapid change in important policy areas such as abortion, taxes and the environment after years of party control — and could increase Minnesota's importance as the western edge of the northern presidential states that include Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
“It's one of those elections where it's going to be very close and a small margin of victory in the election could cause huge policy changes depending on the outcome,” said University of Minnesota political scientist Larry Jacobs. “The parties have dramatically different agendas and there is surprisingly little overlap.”
A Republican administration in Minnesota would likely mean permanent tax cuts and less spending on education, health and human services. Lawmakers who have built their careers on opposing abortion are sure to test how far they can go in seeking new restrictions despite the Minnesota Supreme Court's ruling that the state constitution protects abortion rights.
Requiring citizens to show photo ID at the polls — which voters rejected in 2012 — and other moves to make voting more difficult could be back on the agenda. GOP lawmakers will likely seek to remove barriers to copper and nickel mining that environmentalists say threatens pristine watersheds in northern Minnesota. They can recommend bathroom and athletic restrictions for transgender students. Vouchers to subsidize private school tuition could be on the agenda. And the penalties for the crime could increase.
Divided control of the Legislature — Democrats control the House and Republicans the Senate — has been a recipe for major policy gridlock, including this year, when the parties adjourned the legislative session without agreeing how to use most of budget surplus of $9.25 billion. The only time Minnesota has seen one-party control in the past 30 years is when Democrats held full power in 2013-14.
Republicans need to maintain their narrow majority in the Senate and pick up four seats to take the House. Millions of dollars have poured into about two dozen seats considered competitive, with GOP candidates focusing on crime and inflation. Democrats, meanwhile, see protecting abortion rights as the key to winning critical suburbs.
David Schultz, a political scientist at Hamline University, said the GOP buyout will include many new conservative members eager to see state government take a sharp turn to the right.
“I think it's going to be impossible to contain the pressure,” Schultz said.
The two parties have typically competed in the suburbs of Minneapolis and St. Paul. But House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt said the GOP can find its majority by flipping six seats in northern Minnesota, mostly in the Iron Range, which has slipped from Democrats in recent years, largely because of mining battles. Approval of a copper-nickel mine has long been delayed in the legal and regulatory process, while the Obama and Biden administrations have tried to kill another project altogether. Range workers blame liberal environmentalists in cities.
“Once we win those positions, they're not going to come back,” Daudt said.
Andrea Zupancich, mayor of the Iron Range mining town of Babbitt, is a prime example of the region's shift to the right.
Zupancich was one of six Democratic mayors in the Range who endorsed Donald Trump in 2020, saying their party had moved too far to the left. She is now the Republican candidate for Senate — hoping to replace a retired independent who was a longtime Democrat until he left the party in 2020 for the same reason.
House Speaker Melissa Hortman said Democrats will retain their majority on the strength of redistricting that will give more seats to the party's urban and suburban strongholds. It also draws on her anger over the Supreme Court's decision on abortion.
“The evidence is overwhelmingly clear that women would lose their right to the reproductive health care they need, including abortion care, if Republicans take control,” Hortman said. “The rest of us are not fooled.”
In Tonka Bay, Myers makes his second attempt at crossing into one of Minnesota's most affluent neighborhoods, which mixes luxury homes on the shores of Lake Minnetonka with middle-class homes set back from the great lake. The Democrat who won it by just 313 votes in 2020 is now running for state Senate, and it remains a competitive district.
As he drove through a lakeside neighborhood last week, Myers — who chairs the city's parks and docks committee and has served on other local government bodies — played out that experience.
Joe Galler told Myers that his property taxes had gone up 41 percent in the last year and that not only could Myers count on his vote, but also the votes of at least two nearby neighbors. But when Myers met five people who took a boat out of the water for the season, he heard skepticism that the state can do much against big national problems like inflation, and he heard frustration with current trends in politics.
“Extremist things, they have to stop,” said Bill Scheurer. At that point, Myers agreed: “I agree with you 100 percent,” he said.
In north suburban Blaine, Democrat Matt Norris has been knocking on the door for more than a year to unseat GOP Rep. Donald Raleigh in a Democratic-friendly district after redistricting. Norris went out last week for a repeat visit to an upper-middle-class, diverse neighborhood where nearly every home had video doorbells and few voters answered.
Norris won pledges from most who did. One resident, Howard Bureau, was harsher.
The Bureau peppered him with questions about education and public safety that suggested he was a conservative, though he never said so. But like several voters, his big question was what Norris would do to fix a congested and often dangerous stretch of a major highway through Blaine. This gave Norris an opportunity to speak about bills he already helped pass as a private citizen. His work with nonprofit youth development organizations often overlaps with the realm of public policy.
“I don't know if we're going to beat him, but at least we let him think,” Norris said.
