Minnesota Republicans are optimistic about their chances to turn the state's Iron Range red this election cycle, continuing a trend in recent years that's seen Democratic support decline in rural America.
The shift is culturally significant in northeastern Minnesota, a blue collar region that for decades sent some of the state's most powerful — and colorful — Democratic politicians to St. Paul and Washington, D.C.
"I think there's a better than 50-50 shot that Republicans win every legislative seat on the Range this year," said state House Republican Minority Leader Kurt Daudt. "I actually think that we have an opportunity this time to win the majority out in greater Minnesota."
Democrats see the suburbs as their best shot to make legislative gains this fall. But they're also defending the last remaining blue members on the Range and eyeing pickup opportunities in the region, making a handful of seats there battlegrounds in the fight to control the House and Senate.
The DFL is reminding voters of the party's St. Paul clout and pro-labor message, which helped them hold sway for decades in the mining towns that grew up around iron deposits on the Range.
Republicans have chipped away at DFL dominance in the region over the past decade, using animosity toward the Twin Cities and environmental concerns over mining among some Democrats as a wedge issue to install Republican Pete Stauber in Congress. Voters in the region picked Donald Trump for president in 2016 and 2020.
"It's a trickle effect, and a lot of the miners see it first," said Jed Holewa, who works for Hibbing Taconite Co. and leads the St. Louis County Republican Party.
He said COVID-19 restrictions and fears about crime are intensifying the trend.
"Lots of people are saying I can't be a Democrat anymore," Holewa said.
This spring, redistricting further scrambled the political dynamics in several northeastern Minnesota House seats, and the retirement of two longtime area senators has created openings that both parties are targeting. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent in five races on the Range, as well as two northeastern seats adjacent to the Range around Cloquet and Hermantown.
In most of those races, Democrats are now running in districts where voters picked Trump over Joe Biden two years ago, in some cases by wide margins.
Hibbing teacher and DFL Rep. Julie Sandstede won her race in 2020 by just 30 votes, the closest margin in any state House race. This cycle, redistricting put her in a matchup against Republican Rep. Spencer Igo in a new seat for a district where voters swung nearly 13 percentage points in favor of Trump two years ago. Igo worked in Stauber's office.
Next door, incumbent DFL Rep. Dave Lislegard, a former Aurora mayor and two-term legislator, is hoping his moderate profile and experience at the Capitol will help him defeat Republican Matt Norri in a district whose voters chose Trump by nearly 5 percentage points.
The same is true for DFL Rep. Rob Ecklund, who is facing Ely Mayor Roger Skraba. Ecklund is a trades worker and four-term legislator from International Falls whose newly drawn district went for Trump by nearly 6 points.
But the closest-watched battleground in the region is the rare opening in Senate District 3, a sprawling seat covering the northeast corner of the state that's roughly the size of Massachusetts. Voters in the new district were nearly evenly split between Biden and Trump in 2020.
Andrea Zupancich, the mayor of Babbitt, is a former Democrat who in 2020 joined several other northeastern Minnesota mayors to endorse Trump. Now she's running for the Senate as a Republican. She says she didn't leave the DFL, but that the party left her, a feeling she says is common in northeastern Minnesota.
"It's not the same party. It used to be for the working class," said Zupancich, a real estate agent and former hockey mom whose husband is an owner of Zup's grocery stores in the region.
"People here might be friends with a certain senator or representative, but if they are not aligning with their beliefs, they are not going to vote for them anymore."
She was recruited and endorsed by longtime Sen. Tom Bakk, a former DFL Senate leader known for his Capitol negotiating skills. Bakk, who is retiring, broke with his party to become an independent, joining Republicans on some issues and gaining the gavel of the powerful Senate Capital Investment Committee in the process.
Along with Republican Zupancich, Bakk also endorsed two Democrats — Eckland and Lislegard — in their House races.
Zupancich's DFL opponent, Grant Hauschild, said northern Minnesota has a history of electing lawmakers such as Bakk who can deliver for the district. Jim Oberstar represented the area for 36 years in the U.S. House as a pro-labor Democrat who brought home federal funding for local projects.
"The northland has come to expect a senator who can bring home the money north. That is why my slogan is 'just deliver,' " said Hauschild, a Hermantown City Councilmember and leader at a regional hospital foundation. "We need to not be distracted by partisan issues and focus on delivering for our communities."
Hauschild, who has worked on labor and agriculture issues in Washington and supports mining, was endorsed by Doug Johnson, the senator who served the region for decades before Bakk.
Democrats could also have an opportunity in Senate District 7, which is open after the retirement and recent death of longtime Sen. David Tomassoni, who joined Bakk in breaking with the DFL caucus. Tomassoni, a former Olympic hockey player, served the region for two decades, even as the district swung nearly 9 points for Trump two years ago.
Republicans have recruited Rob Farnsworth, a teacher and a former legislative candidate. Ben DeNucci, his DFL opponent, is an Itasca County commissioner, but he could lose votes to write-in challenger Kim McLaughlin, the DFL candidate he defeated in the primary election.
While northeastern Minnesota candidates are still talking about mining, labor and jobs, the campaign talking points are becoming more similar to those in districts across the state, said Hibbing writer and professor Aaron Brown. Culture war issues have seeped into Range politics, he said, fueling the Republican wave in the area. Brown fears clout could be lost, but also the region's distinct brand of politics.
"The thing I hate as a Range political observer is our uniqueness and independence going the way of the dodo and being replaced with much more cookie cutter partisan politics," said Brown.
"All of this together suggests to me a region at the end stages of a period of change. Eventually, Republicans will settle in to be one of the dominant political forces on the Range. Even if they don't do it this time, they're not going away."
