According to Vice President Kamala Harris’ tactical calculations of her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz could make decisive gains in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — the states Democrats will most likely run if they can hold them. the winner
One of the major challenges for Democrats in these states is the blue-collar and small-town areas that the party once contested competitively (or at least respectably) during and after the emergence of Donald Trump in 2016. Walz’s story and style will be relatable and reassuring to some of these voters, at least eroding some of the Trump GOP’s newfound dominance.
But there’s a catch: Walz couldn’t do it himself in his last campaign.
Demographically, Minnesota overlaps significantly with Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. There is a large white voting population, defined by massive divisions across all classes—white voters with a college education are more Democratic, white voters without a four-year degree more Republican. The reason Minnesota hasn’t achieved battleground status like the other three states is because it has a higher share of the college-educated, Democratic-friendly group.
Walz won his 2022 re-election bid over his Republican challenger 52% to 44%. That’s virtually identical to the 52%-45% margin Joe Biden carried the state in 2020.
Walz put those numbers in a worse year for Democrats, to be sure. But did he get that 52% with a different coalition than Biden’s — one that leaned less toward the well-educated Twin Cities region, with broader support in the small cities and towns of Greater Minnesota? If he did, it would reinforce the idea that Democrats have a strong and unique connection with the type of voters who are being ripped off in these three key battlegrounds.
One way to measure this is to look at results at the county level. Forty-nine of Minnesota’s 87 counties could be considered “Trump Wave” counties; that is, Republicans did at least 20 points better there in 2016 and 2020 under Trump than they did in 2012, when Mitt Romney was the GOP nominee. All of these counties are part of Greater Minnesota, many are rural, and nearly all are white. In these states, the share of white adults without a four-year degree ranges from 72% to 85%.
Demographically, these states almost perfectly fit the mold of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where Democrats have lost the most seats under Trump. They were politically competitive even before Trump, and some even voted for Barack Obama in 2012. In other words, these are the first countries you’ll look at to appreciate the unique appeal of Waltz’s party, where it has experienced the most dramatic Trump. – period slide.
But here’s how Walz’s performance in them compares to Biden’s in 2020 and Obama’s in 2012.
There is no clear difference between Walz’s strength in these areas and Biden’s showing in 2020.
Then there is the flip side. Minnesota has eight counties that you might call “blue wave” states — the only places in the state where Democrats did better in 2020 under Biden than they did under Obama in 2012. These include the heart of the Twin Cities (Hennepin and Ramsey counties, home to Minneapolis and St. Paul) and their densely populated, college-degree-rich suburbs.
Again, the difference between Walz and Biden is negligible. Their numbers speak to the deepening of Democratic loyalties in suburban areas across the country since Trump’s emergence.
What’s surprising, if anything, is how different Walz and Biden’s numbers are from Obama’s. When Obama won two elections, he tapped into strong metro-area support, with respectable showings (and sometimes better) among small-town and blue-collar voters. A key feature of American politics since Obama has been the virtual disappearance of such demographic and geographic balance from the Democratic coalition.
In the ’22 campaign, Walz did not restore the old balance. His coalition, by contrast, seemed to have become the standard post-Obama coalition for Democrats. It collected huge margins in metro areas and was beaten almost everywhere.
None of this is to say that the Harris-Walz ticket can’t win Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. It will be very good. But to push the ticket in those states beyond what has become the Democratic Party norm, Walz will have to overcome Trump-era polarization where he couldn’t in 2022.