- Trouble in Paradise. Democrats Throw In the Towel as MN-08 Flips From Blue to Red
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Trouble in Paradise. Democrats Throw In the Towel as MN-08 Flips From Blue to Red
Posted at 3:59 pm on October 16, 2018 by
streiff
There may be a Blue Wave in November, but one place it won’t be splashing is northeast Minnesota.
Though Minnesota’s Eighth District leans Republican in terms of voter registration, it has been reliably Democrat forever, with the exception of the blip on the radar of the Tea Party revolution in 2010 that saw newcomer Republican Chip Cravaak barely beat longtime machine Democrat James Oberstar. Cravaak was turfed out by Rick Nolan in 2012. Nolan announced in February that he was retiring from the House (he ran in the Democrat primary for Lieutenant Governor but lost).
Now that is changing.
In September, Republican Pete Stauber and Democrat Joe Radinovich were tied. Recent polls show Stauber running away with the election.
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Andrea Ruth
The numbers are real enough that the DCCC has decided to cut its losses.
I don’t pretend to be able to predict political races, but the Blue Wave stuff has always seemed to me to be much more hype than reality.
More like it was a campaign tactic of the Democrats, amplified by their friends in the media, to give an air of inevitability and depress GOP turnout. I don’t doubt the GOP will lose seats but I don’t think losing the House is a given. The fact that we look to pick up a historically Democrat seat in the middle of what has been portrayed as a wave election just doesn’t seem correct.
