By How Much Will Amy Klobuchar Outrun the Top of the DFL Ticket?
Klobuchar is Minnesota’s only U.S. Senator to outperform her party’s top of the ticket nominee by 20+ points in both presidential and midterm elections
President Donald Trump continues to highlight Minnesota as an in-play battleground state as he came to Saint Cloud this weekend to hold a large campaign rally.
Minnesota’s Class I U.S. Senate seat, however, is not considered to be competitive this cycle, with DFLer Amy Klobuchar largely facing only perennial candidates in her party’s primary in two weeks and no prominent politician filing on the GOP side of the ballot.
Klobuchar has mostly polled under 50 percent in her campaign for a fourth term but few should be surprised if she substantially outruns presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket.
In Klobuchar’s three previous election bids for the seat, her margin of victory was more than 10 percentage points higher than the top Democrat in the race:
- 2006 (21.1 points): Klobuchar defeated U.S. Representative Mark Kennedy by 20.1 points while Attorney General Mike Hatch came 1.0 points short of unseating Governor Tim Pawlenty
- 2012 (27.0 points): Klobuchar defeated State Representative Kurt Bills by 34.7 points while Barack Obama was reelected by 7.7 points over Mitt Romney
- 2018 (12.7 points): Klobuchar beat State Representative Jim Newberger by 24.1 points as Tim Walz won the open gubernatorial race by 11.4 points against Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Johnson
Klobuchar is the only U.S. Senator from Minnesota to run at least 20 points ahead of her party’s nominee at the top of the ticket in both presidential and midterm election cycles.
Only two others have done so in midterms:
- 1930 (24.5 points): Republican Thomas Schall eked out a second term by just 1.5 points over Democratic Minneapolis attorney Einar Hoidale while GOP Auditor Raymond Chase lost the gubernatorial race by 23.0 points to Farmer-Laborite Hennepin County Attorney Floyd Olson.
- 1982 (24.9 points): Independent-Republican Dave Durenberger won a second term by 6.0 points against former state Department of Economic Development Commissioner Mark Dayton as former Wayzata Mayor Wheelock Whitney lost to Rudy Perpich by 18.9 points.
Four other winning U.S. Senate candidates have run 20+ points ahead of their party’s presidential nominee:
- 1912 (44.0 points): Republican Knute Nelson defeated former St. Paul Mayor Daniel Lawler by 25.6 points in a preference ballot vote as President William Taft lost the state to Progressive Teddy Roosevelt by 18.4 points.
- 1936 special (45.3 points): Republican and former Hennepin County Deputy Registrar of Motor Vehicles Guy Howard beat former Commissioner of Agriculture and state legislator N.J. Holmberg by 14.5 points despite Kansas Governor Alf Landon losing to President Franklin Roosevelt by 30.8 points.
- 1940 (31.1 points): Farmer-Laborite turned Republican Senator Henrik Shipstead won a fourth term by 27.3 points over former Farmer-Laborite U.S. Senator and Governor Elmer Benson as Wendell Willkie lost Minnesota to FDR by 3.8 points.
- 1976 (29.6 points): Senator Hubert Humphrey won his final election by 42.5 points against university professor Gerald Brekke while Jimmy Carter carried Minnesota by 12.9 points over President Gerald Ford.
Overall, winning Minnesota U.S. Senate candidates have outperformed their party’s presidential nominee in 13 of 19 cycles and outperformed their party’s gubernatorial nominee in midterms during 16 of 20 cycles.
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She seems to be a shoo-in for yet another six-year term – even without Governor Walz on the national ticket. Interestingly, the second-term officeholder (unlike Wes Moore of MD and Josh Shapiro of PA, both having served for a mere year and a half in their respective governor posts) has made himself a top-tier prospect in part by using terms like “weird” and “creepy” when referring to that FORMER president (and a recently-convicted felon) and his “Hillbilly” running mate (actually from the outer Cincinnati suburbs; shamelessly changing his “origin story”!) and their hardcore supporters – rather than resorting to terms such as theocracy, plutocracy, kleptocracy, or even “existential threat to democracy”.
If I am not mistaken DFL Senator Klobuchar has carried the Saint Cloud-anchored US House constituency (‘6’) in each of her previous bids – something not true at least for the D presidential candidates or DFL gubernatorial candidates during the concurrent timespan. Whether she will again carry that resolutely Republican seat in the more polarized 2024 – its present configuration was first created for the 2002 election and has exclusive elected Republicans to the chamber since – is arguably the more intriguing question than the (rhetorical?) question presented for this report.
Changing his origin story? Vance tells his origin story pretty clearly in his book. Have you read it?
Does a person born into a particular cultural group somehow lose his membership in that group by being born in the Cincinnati area? How does that work? Does it apply to the Irish? The Germans? If so, a lot of people in greater Cincy are in for a big surprise. (Cancel Oktoberfest!) Have you told the chamber of commerce?
I haven’t seen the 2006 U.S. Senate vote broken down by congressional district, but I do know Klobuchar won Benton and Stearns Counties (completely in the 6th), Anoka (also in the 3rd and 5th), Washington (also in the 2nd and 4th), and of course Ramsey (also 4th and 5th) and Hennepin Counties (also 2nd, 3rd, and 5th). Kennedy carried Sherburne and Wright Counties (completely in the 6th).