Caucuses Result in Strong Examples of Community Involvement

Minnesota Report

People who have never attended Precinct Caucuses miss out on the feeling of appreciation one can have for the friends and neighbors who weather the cold on a Tuesday Night in February. People come from the warmth of their homes to sit in classrooms, church basements, community centers and town halls to directly interact on important matters of the day.

Our reading from what we have learned from both party’s is a much heavier weight on attendance on the DFL side compared to the Republican. The DFL put out a press release without specific number claiming over 30,000 attendees, while the Republicans were silent on that question.

While we are still waiting for the results, which a large turnout is a petty excuse for why the results of the DFL Governor Straw Poll are still pending. We expect it will show no surprise with the virtual dominance of US Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) over a field of virtue unknowns—except to their immediate families—Bill Gates Jr, Kobey Layne, Christopher Seymore.

Now, we will highlight the reality, The GOP has not won a single state wide race since 2010, but it is interesting to see what their side puts forward, and if the current direction holds the DFL had better be recruiting a major candidate in the Cold Spring area.

Our read on the Republican Governor Straw Poll results, which is the main event of the night show lower GOP turnout 14,105 Republicans participated in the poll.

Now, there may be some stragglers and the results could change slightly, but since the “universe”, a political polling term for the number of participants, is unknown its hard to gauge completely the sentiments of those polled. What is often a result of a poll like this is, it winnows the field of candidates, because financial support dries up unless someone is will is self-fund. Needless to say, here is what we gleaned.

Republican party loyalists are interested in a new face to be what they put forward to Minnesota voters for Governor. The top three candidates, House Speaker Lisa DeMuth (R-13A, Cold Spring), Kendall Qualls (R-MN), and Mike Lindell (R-MN) have never sought statewide office prior. Due to her post as Speaker DeMuth has garnered media attention, as did Qualls during his failed bid for Congress against Dean Phillips (D-MN03) in 2020 and Lindell “The MyPillow Guy” has had an over saturation from infomercials for years and is likely the most well known.

This is not what can be said for past Republican gubernatorial candidates. Their nominee in 2022, former state senator Dr Scott Jensen (R-MN) has lost his luster with the party faithful scoring under 10%, just ahead of Undecided by less than a percentage point, and two time nominee former Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Johnson (R-MN), even with a quality Scandinavian name only drew support of 0.74%.