Why Are Minnesota Democrats So Progressive?

[dflprincess]

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/06/why-are-minnesota-democrats-so-progressive.html?mibextid=Zxz2cZ&fbclid=IwAR3FwKpXa7C40ZKMoNRhHWfxAkGI2X9395dVQHKJK45rX7YKSIxWmiEKa9Y

Last November, Democrats secured full control of Minnesota’s state government by the narrowest of margins. The party’s single-seat majority in the state senate hinged on a race that it won by 321 votes. Its majority in the state house, meanwhile, stood at only six.

Although Minnesota has long been a “blue” state, it has become more competitive in recent years as white non-college-educated voters throughout the Midwest drifted rightward. In 2016, Hillary Clinton carried the North Star State by less than two points.

Given these realities, one might have expected Minnesota governor Tim Walz to get only a small fraction of his agenda into law, much as Joe Biden’s sweeping American Jobs and Families Plans gave way to the more modest Inflation Reduction Act. After all, Minnesota Democrats owed their razor-thin majority in the state senate to lawmakers from historically Republican and rural parts of Minnesota.

As it happened, none of the party’s “majority makers” fancied themselves midwestern Manchins. To the contrary, they facilitated the most robustly progressive legislative session in their state’s modern history, a frenzy of reform so ambitious and comprehensive that it puts New York and California Democrats (and their large legislative majorities) to shame.

Much more at the link. (And I only bolded the one section because it amused me.)

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. I don't know why, but I will say that my far-too-short time in Minnesota

(January 1982 - September 1983) was one of the very best times in my life. We were in Minneapolis. I loved the city. I loved the people. I loved the snow and the cold. Heck, I'd spent the first fourteen years of my life in northern New York State, and so Minneapolis held no challenges.

And what I loved most of all was how progressive and liberal it was. Alas, my husband got a jog in another state, and I've only been back perhaps 4 times for brief visits.

[bamagal62]

2. My son lives in Minneapolis and

he loves it. (He’s very progressive.) . I’m not sure he’ll ever leave! He doesn’t seem to mind the cold. And, really appreciates it when the weather is nice.

[dflprincess]

3. Minnesota is reputed to be one of the hardest states to convince someone to move to

but also one of the hardest states to convince someone to leave (including those who were reluctant to come here in the first place).

Glad your son likes it here.

[Randomthought]

5. Truth

My husband, that I hadn't met yet, was told by Seagate that his job was being moved to Shakopee from Scott's Valley, CA in 2004.
He was angry but it was a good job.
Almost 20 years later, no way he would leave even though all his family is in CA.

[progree]

4. It helps that gerrymandering has been kept under control here, else we'd be like Wisconsin

with an ultra-extreme far right wing very near super-majority legislature.

Its sad reading all the crap they are passing in Wisconsin.

[PlutosHeart]

8. There is a large swath

of MN that has no representation or hope of representation anywhere near Dem related. The people that do represent it are either MAGA-related or work to break down environmental laws.

I think the fact that R Rep.Stauber has a presence at all in NW MN. needs to be seriously revisited in an area that is blue.

There are a couple of Dems that also need to be worked on since they are voting against majority of who they represent as well. Amy K has again joined forces with WI to delist the wolves and Phillips has shown an alignment with the no-namers and Amy and the Blue Dogs with one example of having guns and guards in schools.

We can still do better.

[dflprincess]

9. True. Though this article is looking more at what happened with state government

not our Federal reps.

[PlutosHeart]

10. THX. I realize this but

certain things just irk the C*&* outta me.

[Mawspam2]

6. Simple answer: we don't have a Joe Manchin,

, to sabotage everything worthwhile.

[murielm99]

7. The farmers are Democrats, too.

I think that makes a difference.

[dflprincess]

11. Not many of them.

The Trump signs were thick through Renville & McLeod counties in 2020.

My aunt once told me there were families out that way that were voting Republican even as FDR was saving their farms & still were.

[geardaddy]

12. Number two in the article is phrased weird

(2) Democrats inherited a record-high budget surplus.

That makes it sound like we inherited the budget surplus from the Republicans. We didn't. The DFL helped create the budget surplus.