MN-6 is a combination of suburbs and exurbs of the Minneapolis/St Paul metro area, the St Cloud metro area, and rural towns and townships. I divide out the St Croix River area into its own category because all along the river, it has a distinctive DFL tinge/dominance and it is clearly a different segment of voters compared to other areas of similar distance to Minneapolis/St Paul and with similar population density. Once urban sprawl expands further east, Im sure that’ll change. (Note that my decision on what is an exurb vs rural vs suburb is subjective and you can argue both ways for some of them.)
I labeled the counties on the map and tried my best to darken the county lines to differntiate. St. Cloud city proper is divided up between three counties so reference this map if you care to see the line divisions more clearly.
I graduated from high school in St Michael-Albertville, a pair of exurbs right on the border of the district that would be considered the NW edge of the metro. These exurbs are full-blown tea-bagging country where repealing parts of the constitution is quite popular. CNN’s polling on tea baggers lays out the key demographics of a tea-bagger and this article was actually a bit of a light bulb in realizing why my hometown was so conservative. One key factor is making more money than average, which is true for these exurbs, as per these wikis, St. Michael, Andover, Elk River, and Ham Lake. But there is also another section of exurbs where being rich and conservative doesn’t make them a tea-bagger but more so by what is discussed in this NYT article; white, lower educated and religious. Minnesotans do attend church at a higher rate then the rest of the country, making the exurbs probably even higher on average when you break down the attendance level by region. And, this area is not Scandinavian Lutheran, but rather German Catholic, which makes them a much more conservative religious bunch than religious people in MN as a whole, and even more so when you take out the popular progressive Catholic churches in the Twin Cities. From my personal experience, the case with these exurbs is that it’s a combination; they are more highly educated like most Minnesotans are, so they make more money yet are much more religious and this religiosity is of a more conservative nature, which turned them into fundamentalists in many regards of their thinking.
The exurbs make up 31.63% of the total vote in the district, the largest individual area to rack up votes. And with Minnesotan’s superiority in political activity, these exurban areas are a hotbed for tea-baggery. But the exurbs can only carry so much; the rest of the district will make an incumbent like Bachmann always a fair target in any election cycle in a district with this build.
Below the jump we get into the good stuff.
The Basics of the District
The next three maps show the presidential results for the past two cycles and the 2008 congressional results. The 2004 presidential map is broken down by city instead of precinct due to so many cities changing their precinct layout between those 4 years. Here is a 2008 results map broken down by city for easier comparison between 2004 and 2008.
Bush v Kerry 57%-42%
McCain v Obama Results 53%-45%
Bachmann v Tinklenberg Results 46%-43%
The Democrats are mainly confined to St. Cloud (54%/44% Obama), the suburbs (50%/48%), and the St Croix River area (51%/47%) with them only totaling 38.73% of the vote, though. McCain racked up much bigger margins in all his areas, winning the St. Cloud area by 13%, the exurbs by 16%, and the rural areas by 22%! This district does a great job of being a vote sink for the bigger suburbs that have grown rapidly and become much more Dem-leaning over the last decade by combining them with large swaths of the far reaches of the metro area. This is also seen with MN-2 and MN-3.
By looking at the Congressional results, it becomes apparent where Tinklenberg really did well and ate into the GOP vote, or at least where the GOP voted Indy instead for Bachmann. The next set of maps will compare these drop-offs.
Drop-Off Analysis
The next three maps show the drop-off from McCain-to-Bachmann voters, Obama-to-Tinklenberg, and then the overall advantage a precinct had for a party.
McCain v Bachmann Drop-off
Obama v Tinklenberg Drop-off
Overall Average Advantage
As a background of Minnesota politics, we have the Independence Party which attracts a much more significant amount of protest votes than third party candidates in other states. WIth Bachmann being such a character, she is going to make a lot of Republicans not like her, which resulted in Bachmann underperforming McCain by 6.92%. This also occurs on the DFL side as Tinkenberg underperformed by 1.17%, even while Tink is a perfectly inoffensive candidate.
As for the maps, I see three noteworthy areas where drop-off breaks from the average. The exurbs in Northeast Wright County (my old stomping grounds) are where Bachmann does a bit better than the average. This area is the most tea-baggish from extensive anecdotal evidence so I’m not very surprised; this is really her base. However, the advantage is around 2% and makes up only a handful of cities, so this doesn’t help Bachmann too much. And, these are areas that are trending away from the GOP as they grow in population.
The three densely populated suburbs show some major dissonance, with Woodbury and Anoka having much fewer ticket splitters for the GOP compared to the DFL by a pretty wide margin. But what makes that more interesting is that Blaine is an identical suburban city but actually saw a DFL advantage. Tinklenberg was mayor of Blaine from 1987 until 1996 so what appears to be found is an area where there is a definite home-town advantage occurring.
The other area is obviously St. Cloud and it’s surrounding area. In both territories, Tinklenberg improved on Obama’s percentage of the vote and in the surrounding St. Cloud area, Bachmann lost 3% more McCain voters than the district average. This is also where our likely nominee, state senator Tarryl Clark, represents. This along with the suburbs are the two areas I chose to investigate further.
Another thing to note is that it appears stronger Obama districts posted a stronger Pres-Cong drop-off advantage for the Republicans. I would hypothesize that the swing voters all swung Obama and then many of them swung to the Indy Party for the Congressional. This can be seen with some of the St. Croix River areas, in St. Cloud, and also seems to be tied to why the suburbs are worth investigating.
Percentage of Overall Third-Party Vote in Suburbs
Here I wanted to check to see if the percentage of votes for the Independent varied from the district average when looking at precincts that also varied from the drop-off average. And the results are conclusive that nope, not at all. St. Cloud and St. Cloud area showed similar results; both had a similar drop-off pattern, one had higher Indy voters, one had less than average.
For the next maps, I compare what percentage of the Indy Congressional vote is made up of people who voted for McCain as well.
Suburban Vote Analysis
Percentage McCain Voters Make-up of Indy Vote
Obama/Indy votes were on average much more prevalent in the two suburbs of Anoka and Woodbury. Tink still won these two cities by decent margins, 4.8% and 5.9% respectively, but this goes along with what I mentioned earlier; precincts that Obama won decisively have worse drop-off margins. When the GOP is already getting beat, you can only get so much drop-off before you hit the base GOP support in any given area. And swing voters most likely went for Obama more so in these areas, which then probably lead to a larger drop-off in the Congressional.
The real story though is how Tinklenberg’s home-town advantage resulted in very solid results in the +50k pop. city of Blaine. When the numbers are averaged out for Anoka and Woodbury, the GOP have a 35.29% advantage in make-up of Indy vote compared to the district average in these big city suburbs. Blaine had a 7.9% DFL advantage compared to the district average, thus giving Tinklenberg a home-town advantage where 42.38% of the Indy vote is made up of vote McCain voters rather than what should have been Obama voters.
St. Cloud+Area Vote Analysis
Percentage GOP Voters Make-up of Indy Vote
Tarryl Clark will be our nominee here and is starting to look to the general election against Bachmann. She was elected in a special election and sworn in for the 2006 legislative session starting in January, and is currently number two in the state senate DFL leadership. Clark should be able to clean-up in her home-town and be able to resonate as the St. Cloud candidate in the rest of the St. Cloud area. (Anyone know the last time St. Cloud sent one of their own to Congress?)
Running the home-field advantage numbers from Tink’s performance, if the electorate were to be exactly the same for Clark, she’d gain 1525 votes in St. Cloud and 2446 votes in the St. Cloud area, giving Clark a grand total of 3971 more votes. When you subtract out the loss of a home-town advantage in Blaine (989 votes), having a home-town advantage in St. Cloud based off the 2008 electorate gives the DFL a net plus of 2982 votes, or just under half of the total vote needed to beat Bachmann in the 2008 cycle. I also believe she could do better home-town advantage wise, as this a small-town atmosphere and a home-towner can really exploit that.
*Note that the precinct on the left hand border is left white because there were no third party votes cast in the Congressional.
Conclusion
Clark is certainly running in a year that’ll be much tougher than it was for Tink, but I’m optimistic for a few reasons. First, from the data I’ve presented, she stands a great shot at picking up votes from her home-town advantage vs other DFL candidates, her fundraising is out of this world, she’s actually attacking Bachmann and because of that, I think she will do a better job overcoming the national environment. This race can’t be one of GOP vs DFL, it needs to be Michele Bachmann vs Sane Opponent. If Clark can properly frame this race and stay on the offense, hopefully Bachmann will be the Musgrave of 2010.
It’s always a bit eerie when driving W on I94 from MSP to visit my wife’s family closer to the SD border. At least the billboards feel like the rural south.
If I’m reading your maps right, D areas are pretty much St Cloud and west. Interesting that the D counterweights to the Exurbs perhaps are part of the old DFL coalition, with the emphasis on the Farmer. And as Upton Sinclair’s home town is on the route, that goes back before Humphrey.
One suggestion – it’d help to have the noted Exurb cities marked on the district map.
A second suggestion, explain why some of the numbers listed in the last two maps exceed 100%.
There’s one dark-red precinct in Woodbury that shows up in the Obama-McCain and Bachmann-Tinklenberg maps. How is that precinct so different from its surroundings? Is it still rural and lightly populated? Or is it McMansionLand?
Excellent mappage! You should be officially nominated for the Excellent Maps of the Year Award in the SSP Political Horserace Awards (or “the Hossies”)….
Your analysis as someone who knows the area pretty well is invaluable. One of my favorite maps, probably because of that, was your first one, even though as you said, it was your most subjective. But I think it’s an invaluable tool (when combined with your analysis) in understanding the lay of the land.
Frankly, a 3,000-vote shift for a hometown advantage in a city the size of St. Cloud (and the attendant media market) does not seem at all out of the question, especially for a state Senator who’s been re-elected by St. Cloud voters, when facing an out-of-town/planet opponent. Really excellent and informative work, Andrew, thank you!
It’s clear you put a lot of work and thought into this, and the results are very impressive.
I think you’re right that Clark or any Democrat is dead in the water if this becomes a D/R contest, or Lib/Con one — it has to be a referendum on the level of insanity the district is going to tolerate from Michelle Bachmann.
That said, here’s the concern I have with Clark. Enough people in that district seem to be willing to vote on “values issues” alone, especially opposing abortion rights, that they would actually accept any level of craziness from Bachmann before they would vote for someone who is pretty liberal on social issues. I hope I’m wrong, and I’m glad to see Clark aggressively going after Bachmann. Even in a tough district in a tough year, we can’t give Madame Crazy any passes.
Things like this are what make SSP one of the best political sites
Will having a third party candidate on the ballot help or hurt Bachmann?
I really enjoyed this diary and your local insight into this district, but more than anything I loved your excellent maps and the drop-offs between different candidates. One question: There are a number of precincts (mostly in the western half of the district) that Kerry won but Obama lost. What was responsible for those shifts from 2004 to 2008?