Trump to continue run at long-blue Minnesota

Former president sees Biden weakness in ’24

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Former President Donald Trump’s planned campaign visit to Minnesota on Friday will mark his return to a traditionally Democratic state that he has long argued he could carry.

Trump will take a break from his hush money trial in New York to speak at the Minnesota GOP’S annual Lincoln Reagan fundraising dinner. Tickets start at $500, ranging up to $100,000 for a VIP table for 10 with three photo opportunities with Trump. The dinner coincides with the party’s state convention.

Trump’s new state campaign chair is House Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota, who’s supporting Trump even though the former president and his allies were instrumental in blocking Emmer’s attempt to become speaker last fall.

It’s unclear whether the Trump campaign will get any of the money raised. The campaign did not respond to an emailed request for comment, and Emmer declined an interview request. His co-host for the dinner, Republican Party of Minnesota Chairman David Hann, also did not respond.

Trump came close to taking Minnesota and its 10 electoral votes in 2016, when he fell 1.5 percentage points short of Hillary Clinton in a state that no Republican presidential candidate has won since Richard Nixon in 1972. He returned to Minnesota several times in 2020, but Democrat Joe Biden beat him by more than 7 percentage points when he tried for a second term.

Still, Trump continues to insist he can win in Minnesota. He made a similar boast Saturday at a rally in reliably Democratic New Jersey.

At a private donor retreat in Florida on May 4, Trump campaign senior adviser Chris Lacivita discussed the campaign’s plans to expand its electoral map into Virginia and Minnesota, based on the Trump team’s growing optimism that both states are within reach.

“We have a real opportunity to expand the map here,” Lacivita told The Associated Press. “The Biden campaign has spent tens of millions of dollars on TV ads and in their ‘vaunted ground game.’ And they have nothing to show for it.”

Trump appeared to falsely claim in an interview just ahead of Super Tuesday that he actually won Minnesota in 2020.

“Well, I thought we won it last time, I’ll be honest,” he told KNSI Radio in St. Cloud. “And I think we did win it.”

There’s no evidence that there were any serious irregularities in the 2020 election in Minnesota. A handful of challenges to the results failed.

Trump said it didn’t make sense to him that no Republican presidential candidate has won the state since 1972. “It’s not like, in my opinion, that blue,” he said.

He later vowed: “We’re going to put a heavy move into Minnesota, I promise.”

Whether that’s a misdirection play or a serious effort to win there remains to be seen. Minnesota has a long history of producing liberal icons such as Vice Presidents Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale and Sen. Paul Wellstone, but it’s also the state that shocked the world when it elected former pro wrestler Jesse Ventura as governor in 1998.

Experts are split on whether Minnesota really will be competitive this time. Some say the economy remains a Biden vulnerability despite low unemployment and rising consumer confidence. The state’s unemployment rate is 2.7 percent, well below the national jobless rate of 3.8 percent.

University of Minnesota political scientist Larry Jacobs said that while 2020 was a good year for Biden in Minnesota, he’s not sure the president will be so well positioned this time.

“It looks to me like Minnesota is in play,” he said.