Minnesota
By Eric Ostermeier on December 2, 2008
If politics is a bottom line business, then the Republican Party of Minnesota can be rightfully pleased to have won three U.S. House seats last month. Several pundits, such as the Rothenberg Political Report, projected the DFL to pick up both Michele Bachmann’s seat in the 6th CD as well...
By Eric Ostermeier on December 1, 2008
8:50 a.m. The Center for the Study of Politics and Governance is hosting a conference this morning entitled, "Toward More Open Government: A Conference on Reforming the Redistricting Process." The headline for the event as to why this could be a pressing issue in 2011, after the 2010 census is...
By Eric Ostermeier on November 30, 2008
As we approach a month since Election Day, many DFLers continue to lament that if Norm Coleman should hold onto his US Senate seat after the statewide recount, it is not because Coleman won the race, but because the DFL lost it – specifically, by nominating a ‘weak’ and controversial...
By Eric Ostermeier on November 28, 2008
On Monday morning Smart Politics will live blog a conference on redistricting reform in Minnesota at the Humphrey Institute. Toward More Open Government: A Conference on Reforming the Redistricting Process Monday, December 1, 2008 8:30am - 12:00pm Humphrey Forum Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs From the Institute's Center...
By Eric Ostermeier on November 26, 2008
Earlier this month Smart Politics examined how a victory by Norm Coleman would mark the first time since 1940 that a Republican has been elected Senator from the Gopher State in a presidential election year in which a Democrat was sent to the White House. That study examined the Coleman...
By Eric Ostermeier on November 25, 2008
While the number of challenged ballots has been increasing in the Minnesota U.S. recount during the past week, the rise has not been uniform across the state’s partisan geographic divide. Smart Politics studied the change in challenged ballots in counties that had completed their recounts between the end of Thursday,...
By Eric Ostermeier on November 24, 2008
The October 2008 unemployment numbers released late last week by Dan McElroy, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, reveals the Gopher State is enduring its worst jobless trend in more than two decades. October’s 6.0 percent seasonally adjusted unemployment rate marks the second time out of...
By Eric Ostermeier on November 22, 2008
The Center for the Study of Politics and Governance released a report this week which puts into perspective what seemed like large changes in the vote count for Al Franken between the end of Election Day to just before the recount. From the CSPG report: A study of the change...
By Eric Ostermeier on November 21, 2008
The U.S. Senate ballot recount has been completed in 36 of Minnesota’s 87 counties, according to the Secretary of State’s website as of 8:00 pm Thursday evening. A Smart Politics study of those counties in which 100% of the ballots have been recounted finds an astonishingly similar rate of challenged...
By Eric Ostermeier on November 20, 2008
If Norm Coleman is able to hold onto his narrow lead against Al Franken in the 2008 U.S. Senate recount that began on Wednesday, he would accomplish a feat that has not been seen in Minnesota since before World War II: no Republican since 1940 has been elected Senator from...
By Eric Ostermeier on November 18, 2008
On Monday, Smart Politics examined the margin of victory and loss in each county between the DFL candidates in the 2006 gubernatorial and 2008 U.S. Senate races, and found Al Franken most severely underperformed in the Northern counties of the Gopher State vis-à-vis Mike Hatch. Today, in the second part...
By Eric Ostermeier on November 17, 2008
On the surface, there are several similarities between the 2008 U.S. Senate race and the 2006 gubernatorial race in Minnesota. · Both races featured 1-term Republican incumbents facing reelection in Democratic wave election years and, pending a change of fate in the U.S. Senate recount, Republicans emerged victorious in each...
By Eric Ostermeier on November 13, 2008
Should Republican Norm Coleman prevail in the U.S. Senate recount against DFLer Al Franken over the coming weeks, his reelection will be noteworthy in several respects. First, at 42.0 percent, Coleman will have been elected by the lowest percentage in Minnesota in nearly 80 years and the second lowest in...
By Eric Ostermeier on November 12, 2008
After flirting with national office in 2008 – as a purported finalist on John McCain’s short list of Vice-Presidential nominees – Tim Pawlenty has the luxury of governing a state in which gubernatorial elections are conducted in presidential off-year cycles. Governor Pawlenty has stated that he is not going...
By Eric Ostermeier on November 10, 2008
As the headline of Barack Obama’s historic victory begins to fade and political reporters and analysts need to turn their attention elsewhere, it is likely the recount in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race will satisfy their cravings and subsequently garner even more national attention. To date, due to its understandably Obama-centric...
By Eric Ostermeier on November 8, 2008
In Minnesota’s House District 61B election on Tuesday, Green Party candidate Farheen Hakeem received 30.3 percent of the vote – the highest mark ever reached by the Green Party in a House contest. The Green Party has run 29 candidates for the House of Representatives in special and general...
By Eric Ostermeier on November 7, 2008
Third party candidates in the Gopher State made a slight comeback in 2008, and had some impact on Minnesota legislative races on Tuesday. Two races were decidedly impacted by third party candidacies. In the open DFL House District 51A, Republican Tim Sanders defeated DFL candidate Shawn Hamilton by a 47.8...
By Eric Ostermeier on November 6, 2008
Although the number of candidates the Independence Party of Minnesota has been able to field in state legislative elections has fallen sharply during the past few election cycles, the Party enjoyed some personal bests in the 2008 elections. At the top of the ticket, in the U.S. Senate race, the...
By Eric Ostermeier on November 5, 2008
Despite failing to net five seats and reach a 90-seat supermajority in the House of Representatives, the DFL is actually now in a much stronger position heading into 2010 than they were heading into Tuesday’s election. Perhaps more important than netting two additional seats, the DFL deepened their support in...
By Eric Ostermeier on November 5, 2008
Barack Obama’s sweep through most of the Midwest on Tuesday night was perhaps most notable for his victory in Indiana. But there were other historical oddities with Obama’s victory that occurred in the region, one of which was that, for the first time since 1936, a Democratic presidential nominee had...
