Minnesota, Melania Trump wants to extend thanks to you for having her dreadful husband eat dinner with you, so she doesn’t have to put herself through the appearance of tolerating him. And maybe she didn’t plan to. We have no idea what goes on behind closed doors at Mar-a-Lago, only that the Trumps apparently don’t go to major events like funerals and graduations together. So maybe Donald was already 86ed from his son’s graduation dinner, party, or whatever will be.
If you saw footage of Barron Trump’s graduation ceremony today, you’ll know that Donald showed up at the very last minute with his usual ten-car Secret Service entourage. I don’t know what’s more disruptive to social settings, Trump blasting in with the Secret Service or him farting. Maybe it’s even money. In all events, Trump winged his way to Minnesota and here’s what happened there.
He said “I will never come back for a general election.” pic.twitter.com/jCVrFOqKcq
— Jürgen "jkr" Kraus (@jkr_on_the_web) May 17, 2024
Trump also made the same promise to the nation, that if Joe Biden won he would leave our shores, permanently. We’re still waiting to see him make good on that bet. Luckily, we’re not holding our breath.
Donald Trump has an obsession with flipping Minnesota red. I understand that. The perennial Democratic wet dream is that we’re going to flip Texas blue. Many’s the prayer I have sent heavenward. That said, we could see some changes on the map in 2024. Ted Cruz could get toppled by his Democratic contender, Colin Allred. And if that comes to pass, lo, that will be miracle enough for me. I will go to my grave happy, even if Texas never flips blue. Can Trump make his peace in like fashion?
Donald Trump has fixated on the idea he can expand the map in a general election that’s likely to be decided in six swing states. He has touted his rally attendance in New Jersey as evidence that he could flip the deep-blue stronghold. And he has mused about winning Virginia.
But it’s Minnesota, of all places, where Trump has been obsessed for years with leveling the Democratic Blue Wall, and where Trump has zeroed in on flipping the Upper Midwestern state. He nearly won there in 2016, coming within 2 points of Hillary Clinton, the closest of any GOP nominee since Richard Nixon. And he promised to win it in 2020 — “I lose Minnesota,” he said that year, “I’m never coming back.” […]
Senior Trump advisers presented new polling data to top donors earlier this month, showing slide decks inside the Four Seasons Palm Beach that argued Minnesota and Virginia were the top two states where Trump could expand the map this November.
During the presentation, campaign advisers Chris LaCivita, Susie Wiles and pollster Tony Fabrizio flashed numbers on screen from another Trump pollster, John McLaughlin, showing President Joe Biden and Trump tied at 40 percent in Minnesota, and Biden up 3 percentage points in Virginia. Without independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as an option, Trump was up 5 points in Minnesota and Biden up 1 point in Virginia, the advisers told donors.
Even Republicans in Minnesota are skeptical.
“Minnesota is a blue state,” said Michael Brodkorb, a former deputy chair of the Minnesota Republican Party. “On a good day for Republicans, it can be a little bit of Vikings purple.”
I don’t see Trump taking Minnesota. In fact, I see him losing Minnesota by double digits, something more than the 7 points he lost it by in 2020. But hope springs eternal, that we know. And Trump needs to grift money, and that’s what he’ll be doing tonight. Pro tip to the state RNC: Put it all in the down ballot. Giving it to Trump is like lighting it on fire.
If there is one thing that has become obvious in the current era, it’s that you can’t trust polls.
They are either partisan with varying degrees of subtlety, or just wrong. I think the reason that they often seem to favor republicans is that republicans, now, are quite happy to accept lies, spin, and dishonesty, if it favors them, and they’re happy to pay for it to perpetuate the narrative that they stand a chance.
Rightly or wrongly, the left generally prefers dealing with facts and reality rather than wishes or narratives, but in the days following P.J. O’Rourke’s ‘journalism’ it has become quite apparent that a strong narrative, widely distributed has the power to change reality.
Our side has to put more effort into countering the publicity spin of the others and point out their lies and ‘interpretations of truth’, plainly and clearly.
it’s a small campaign dinner for money to pay his lawyers that’s all.
Trump almost could’ve carried Minnesota in 2016 if it hadn’t been for two former Republicans running on third-party tickets.
Hillary outdid Trump by just under 45,000 votes. The Libertarian Party, headed by Gary Johnson (former GOP Governor of New Mexico–Libertarian only since 2011), won nearly 113,000 votes (oh, incidentally, his running mate was William Weld–who’d been a GOP Governor of Massachusetts and only left the GOP in 2016). Then, there was Evan McMullin who was technically an Independent but ran in Minnesota under the “Independence Party” banner (this was previously Minnesota’s Reform Party until the national Reform Party picked Pat Buchanan as their 2000 Presidential candidate; after that, it became independent) and he won more than 53,000 votes.
It’s probably safe to say that the majority of these votes came from Republican voters who weren’t happy with Trump as the party’s candidate (in 2020, the Libertarians were only able to attract just under 35,000 votes and the “Alliance Party’–the successor to the Independence Party–pulled in just over 5600 votes). If even 50% of those Libertarian or Independence Party voters had been disaffected GOPers who were willing to vote for Trump, he could’ve taken Minnesota. (And given Trump improved his own numbers from 2016 to 2020 by more than 160,000 votes with an overall general increase of 333,000 votes–Biden’s numbers increased by some 350,000, so I really doubt *new* voters accounted for much, if any, of Trump’s vote tally increase–the “Blue Wall” was perilously close to shattering in 2016 where Minnesota was concerned.)