Rout and Route: What Happens to Minnesota Democrats on and After Election day 2022

There is the real possibility that Minnesota politics could be a rout this November.  It would be a rout of

the DFL and a major victory for the Republican party, potentially putting the latter in charge for the first time since 1984-1986 when it was the last time the GOP controlled the state legislature and the governorship.  It might also represent the culmination of the Trump and Republican Party effort that first started in 2016 to flip the Midwest.  Of all that happens, what is the route for the Democrats after election day?

The National Scene
Six months ago it would have been an easy prediction to argue this election cycle nationally and statewide was favorable to Republicans.   Generally the president’s party does badly in midterm elections, losing an average of 26 House seats. Six months ago Biden had approval ratings of about 40%, Voters disapproved of the president’s handling of the economy despite the fact that there was record low unemployment and the strongest labor-wage  market in years. For voters the economy was inflation at the gas pump and grocery store.  Voters were also concerned about crime.

Nationally Democrats had either no narrative or a bad narrative when it came to the economy or crime.  But then the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade and abortion saved the Democrats, temporarily.  For several months abortion was the major Democrat talking point nationally and in Minnesota, and it appeared to save them as it motivated many groups, including college educated suburban women.

Until a month ago or even less it looked like abortion would save Democrats. But national polls suggest that abortion has run its course.  The economy or inflation and crime are the top two issues by far, with abortion third or even lower.  This is even true among suburban women.  Polls now suggest that US Senate races where the Democrats were once favored, such as in Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, are tightening and it is possible Republicans could prevail.

Minnesota
Minnesota is an American political microcosm.  MPR and Survey USA (KSTP) polls point to an electorate worried about inflation or the economy and crime.  This includes suburban voters.  Polls suggest a close race for governor’s race, Attorney General, Auditor, and even Secretary of State.  Depending on voter mobilization and how the few undecided voters break, these races could go DFL or GOP.  Many think the GOP will win at least the AG and State Auditor.   The DFL holds a narrow majority in the Minnesota House and the Republicans a small but solid majority in the Senate.  The only real tight Congressional race is in the Second District where DFL incumbent Angie Craig holds (according to internal polls) about a one-point lead over GOP Tyler Kistner.  

While I see no chance for the DFL to flip the Senate I am also doubtful that it will hold the House. It is thus entirely possible for the DFL to get swept out of the four statewide offices and lose the second Congressional District.

Were the above to happen, what went right for the Republicans or wrong for the Democrats?

Messaging and Strategy
One answer is that the results in Minnesota are determined by national trends.  An unpopular president, inflation, and crime are macro forces beyond the control of anyone in Minnesota. Republicans rode the wave and Democrats got buried in it.  But such an explanation ignores too much.

Nationally Democrats had no message or narrative on inflation or crime.  Granted there is little a president can do to address inflation, but the talking points were awful or next to none.  The same is true with crime. Biden and the Democrats could have stolen a page from Bill Clinton  and proposed money to hire 100,000 police but they did not.  Instead, they became painted yet again as soft on crime.
The same problem exists in Minnesota. Walz and the Democrats relied too much on abortion to save them.   They were tagged two years ago as soft on crime with the riots after George Floyd’s death.  They were tagged with the defund the police movement and failed to articulate a narrative of public safety.  In terms of the economy there may be little they can do at the state level to address inflation. But the fact that they failed to craft a narrative is a problem.

Moreover, the strategy was bad.  Walz sat on his lead and cash advantage and avoided debating.  It cost him dearly. Recent KSTP polls point to a weakening of his support in his former First Congressional District.

Effectively, Walz and the Democrats have written off all but the Metro region.  In 2018 Walz won 20 of Minnesota’s counties. In 2016 Clinton won 9 counties, in 2020 Biden won 13 counties and Tina Smith 15 counties.  The base of the DFL is narrow and counts on high mobilization in a few Metro area counties.

I spend a lot of time traveling the state to lecture and give talks.  It is clear the Metro DFL agenda on crime, the environment, and social issues don’t play there.  The Metro area DFL, party activists here, or the convention attendees and activists are out of touch with the rest of the state, and perhaps with many leaning DFL in Greater Minnesota and even in the suburbs.  As noted above, polls suggest erosion of support for the Democrats in most locations across the state, including in the metro suburbs and among college-educated women.

Summary: Rout and Route?
To state clearly–The DFL and Walz may have a message out of touch with most Minnesotans who are nowhere near as progressive as the Metro area or core Twin Cities activists. This in turn  renders their strategy to win difficult because it is one narrowly confined or defined to a narrow base.  Moreover the messaging or narrative fails to understand the depth of concern regarding crime and  the economy and its focuses too much upon an agenda that appeals to the progressive wing of the party.  Couple that with a campaign strategy that aims to mobilize only in a few counties, that fails to counter the GOP narrative, that focuses too much on abortion this year, and which, in the case of Walz, sat on a lead, one then gets the makings for a rout.

If that rout occurs, the question on the day after the election will be to ask what route should the DFL have taken to avoid the rout, and what direction should it take going forward?

Why schools fail: a view from a college professor

 My latest was an oped in the Star Tribune.

Why schools fail: a view from a college professor

We need to let teachers teach. 

By David Schultz OCTOBER 22, 2022 — 6:00PM

“The ACT and its SAT competitor are poor predictors of college performance, at best only telling us a small fraction of what factors affect student success,” David Schultz writes.

Declining Minnesota ACT scores may be a problem. But even disregarding test numbers, there is a problem in how well our schools are preparing students for college.

This is what I see as a college professor.

ACT is a standardized test taken by high school students and it is used by colleges along with grades as admission criteria. ACT scores have declined nationally in recent years. This newspaper also reported how the most recent scores for the Minnesota class of 2022 are the lowest in at least a decade. The low scores seem not to be the product simply of the pandemic. They began falling dramatically in 2016 and continue to slide.

There are reasons to dismiss the ACT slide. The ACT and its SAT competitor are poor predictors of college performance, at best only telling us a small fraction of what factors affect student success. They are also racially and class biased, with numerous studies pointing to how they discriminate against people of color and the poor. They are partially coachable; families that can pay for a college prep class can improve their children's test scores and access more elite schools.

Tests such as the ACT are part of a self-perpetrating cycle of elitism that stratifies American education along racial and class divisions. For these reasons and others many colleges are abandoning the ACT.

Nonetheless, declining ACT scores portend problems regarding what we teach and do in K-12 and the college-readiness of many of our students.

I write from the perspective of a 30-year-plus college professor who has taught thousands of undergraduate students at four-year public and private schools and also at the community college level. At one time I wanted to be a high school teacher. I regularly visit and teach at public and private high schools across the metro region at the request of teachers. Often the students involved are in advanced placement classes. I see students in the postsecondary enrollment options program (PSEO), and I do teacher training for high school teachers.

What I see and hear is not good.

When I talk to high school teachers they often ask me what I am looking for in college students and what can they do to prepare them to succeed in college. When I tell them what I want they agree that what they are doing is not what the students need.

It is not because the high school teachers are bad — I often work with the best — or that the unions protect bad teachers as conservatives charge, or that public schools are inherently bad. It is because schools and politicians do not let teachers teach.

Schools and curriculum are so standardized-test driven that teachers do not have the opportunity to work with students to develop critical thinking, problem solving, other substantive skills or bodies of knowledge, or to talk about things that won't be tested.

The problem started perhaps with No Child Left Behind under the Bush administration and it has only turned worse. This factory model of education constipates learning and education.

In my first teacher's education class my professor drew a triangle on the board, labeling the three corners school, home and community. He said it took all three to properly educate children.

Students are only in school a few hours for less than 180 days per year. Alone, schools cannot educate. Society ignores the importance of stable and healthy families and integrated and safe neighborhoods in supporting education. In a state with horrible race and class disparities it is no surprise so many fail in school.

But failing the poor and people of color is only part of the problem.

I see a persistent decline in basic skills and knowledge. To be educated is about what you know and how you know it. It is not simply rote memorization for a standardized test. Too many students lack college skills. Many do not know how to outline. Many do not know how to take notes in class. Few know what a literature review is. They are not taught how to read a book and analyze plot and characters.

Many students do not know how to study. They are spending less time on homework now than a few years ago. Many lack the grit to work through assignments. Many enter college unprepared.

The culture war students' parents and the political parties are fighting corrupts learning. This was happening well before the recent hysteria and backlash over critical race theory. Education is not about reinforcing but about challenging preconceived biases and beliefs. From both the right and the left I see a refusal to confront ugly facts challenging their biases.

I also see, more now than a few years ago, intolerance for disagreement and a lack of empathy for intellectual diversity.

We live in a state that is a national educational leader. We have open enrollment, charter schools, magnet schools. There are also repeated calls for vouchers. There is minimal evidence these gimmicks have made much difference in terms of college preparation.

When I tell my high school teachers what students need to succeed they concur. For them, the failure is not junior high or elementary school, it is the entire way we educate.

Minnesota 2022: The DFL is in Trouble

 Note: This is a long-overdue blog on Minnesota politics.  I hope to return to regular blogging after this

long break I took.

If the recent polls are accurate the Minnesota Democratic Party is in danger of losing several statewide constitutional offices, in addition to control of the statehouse.

A recently conducted KSTP Survey USA poll indicates that while Governor Walz maintains a ten point lead over Scott Jensen (with 7% undecided and a margin of error of 4.4%), the other three offices–Attorney General, Secretary of State, and State Auditor are all close, within the 4.4% margin of error (credibility interval) with 13% 18%, and 18% undecided respectively.  Can we trust these polls and what do the numbers mean?

Geek Alert:  A Concern About the Survey Methodology

As I reviewed the recent poll I had a lot of questions.  Remember it was a similar KSTP poll several weeks ago that had Walz leading over Jensen by 18%, while a poll a few weeks later by MPR, Kare 11, and the Star Tribune had the lead at 10%.  No one seriously thought Walz had an eighteen-point lead then. He is less popular today than four years ago when he ran in a good Democratic Party year. The September KSTP poll was simply bad, at least for the governor’s race.

This new poll released October 5-6, surveys 825 individuals. The survey has 59% from the Metro region (which is about correct).  It also has more registered Republicans than Democrats (37% to 36%), which may be a little biased to Republicans based on2020 exit polls. It was a mixed mode-survey that involved telephone (landline) or a cellular device but it is not clear what the percentage of the two was, so it is difficult to assess bias here.  Finally the survey uses a credibility interval instead of margins of error.  For many statistical reasons, I find such intervals inferior to margins of error.  My point here?  It is not clear how good the methods in this survey are and whether it is biased in favor of Democrats or Republicans. But for the sake of argument, assume it is a good survey.

Interpreting the Results

Months ago nationally and in Minnesota Democrats were in trouble.  Crime and the economy were the major issues.  Then the Supreme Court issued the Dobbs opinion overturning Roe v. Wade and abortion rights.  This temporarily put Republicans on the defensive.  Abortion, falling gas prices, and a slight bump in Biden’s approval ratings seemed to help Democrats.  Yet this new poll, as well as national ones, point to a resurgence of crime and the economy as major issues, with Republicans favored as better able to handle them. 

Yes, abortion remains an issue, especially for college-educated suburban women, and if they show up to vote on this issue the DFL will do well.  Yet this issue has to be weighted, even among these women, compared to crime and inflation in terms of what will motivate them.  These issues also need to be looked at also in terms of how other groups are motivated to vote. The bottom line is that abortion is not the clear-cut winning issue for Democrats as they thought.  Moreover, while   at least 60% of Minnesotans seem to support abortion rights, the DFL and the Democrats have framed the issue poorly.  They are talking abortion and not reproductive rights. The latter would be a better strategy to reach a larger group of people, especially more moderate Democrats and independents.

Dog Whistles

Democrats and Republicans both have their dog whistles and coded messages this year.  For the GOP crime again is about race and they continue to run against Democrats who supported the badly phrased “defund the police” message.  In addition,w hile some see Jens’e reference to “furries” and school children using litter boxes as missteps, it was a terrific dog whistle to mobilze his base on social issues while he walks away from abortion.

For the Democrats, abortion is the dog whistle is abortion.  It appeals to some constituencies, especially women and their core base.

Assessing the Campaigns

Second, while Walz has a lead he has run a horrible campaign.  As a matter of fact, none of the constitutional officers are running good campaigns, with Jensen making one misstep after another.  Walz has sat on his lead and his money advantage and has chosen not to debate. This is a critical mistake.  It looks either like he is afraid to debate or worse, in light of the fraud scandal involving Feeding our Future, like he is hiding.  His fight with a state judge over whether the latter ordered the Minnesota Department of Education to continue funding the non-profit was a mistake.  Overall, with a ten-point lead with a 4.4% margin of error, his lead could be as low as 6%.  With  seven percent undecided, and generally with those undecideds breaking 60/40 against the incumbent, the governor’s race is potentially down to just a few single digits.

Conclusion

I have written three editions of Presidential Swing States where I feature Minnesota. While the state has noted gone GOP in a presidential race since 1972 with Nixon, or statewide for a Republican since 2006, there are many demographic and voting patterns that favor the Republicans, including this year.  The KSTP poll while potentially flawed may suggest the state is more competitive than many think.