Rural Minnesotans voted for Democratic Gov. Tim Walz six times in Congress and once for governor, but times have changed, according to a new report.
Residents of Albert Lea, a rural Midwestern town of 18,000 people in Freeborn County, Minnesota, appear to be abandoning their support for Walz. politiko It was reported on Friday.
“I don’t think Trump has ever been this strong in rural areas,” Terry Gersvik, a local Democrat who lost a 2018 election to the state House, told Politico.
Although Minnesota is not a major battleground state in the upcoming election, national and state polls show former President Trump's approval rating in rural and small towns is around 60% or higher.
But the Harris-Waltz campaign is targeting these rural areas ahead of the November election.
Voters interviewed by Fox News Digital in Wisconsin did not support Walz. (Reuters)
Tim Walz says he's been to China “dozens of times” but says his campaign is “approaching 15 years”
“If you can improve a few points, five points in these rural areas, when you multiply that across all the rural areas in those states, that's a big deal,” said John Anzalone, a veteran pollster and Harris adviser. ” he said. “This is probably the first candidate in modern history,” Walz said. [Jimmy] Carter can speak both small town America and rural America. ”
Politico spoke to many people on the ground and found that many Freeborn County residents who had previously voted Democratic planned to vote for Trump.
Rich Murray, the current mayor of Albert Lea, told Politico that Harris and Walz will win in the state, but that the governor “is not going to get votes here,” which he did before 2016. It wasn't.
Freeborn County was twice won by Mr. Obama, and Mr. Walz carried it when he defeated a Republican in the 2006 House race. But by 2016, Walz's support had shrunk, and the county twice backed Trump.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz arrives to attend a press conference regarding new gun regulations at City Hall on August 1, 2024 in Bloomington, Minnesota. ((Photo by Steven Maturen/Getty Images))
Walz narrowly won the county when he was elected governor in 2018, but when he ran for re-election in 2022, he lost by nearly 15 points to Republican challenger Scott Jensen in Freeborn, and lost in 2006 to Republican challenger Scott Jensen in Freeborn. There was a difference of nearly 30 points since the first parliamentary election. .
Waltz declared at the rally, “We can't afford to go on for four more years,'' and roasted him.
Walz had a moderate tone when he first entered politics, but as governor he signed legislation that enacted universal background checks, free school lunches, and protections for abortion and gender transition, Politico reported. These policies not only left dissatisfaction with his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, but also failed to appeal to voters in areas such as Freeborn County.
“I call this the Democratic Party's 'smash and grab' to the Capitol,” Freeborn resident Carla Salier said. “They did everything they could to make us a sanctuary for transgender people and illegal aliens. They just went crazy.”
However, this shift may be due in part to voter polarization.
“I think the electorate has changed,” Eric Ostermeyer, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota, told Politico. “And I would say the other aspect of this is that the willingness of voters to split their ballots has changed.
“Because I put myself in people’s shoes.” [information] As we become more and more siloed and the other side increasingly characterized as evil, people say things like, “I’m still going to vote for him because of this one good Democrat,” or “I’m still going to vote for him because of this one good Democrat.” It's hard to say, “There's a good Republican…he's not that bad.'' “I think it says more about the party than the personality,'' he said.
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