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The political implications of the Minneapolis protests for Minnesota, explained

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Minnesota barely stayed blue in 2016. If there’s a backlash to protests, could it turn red?
The same day that Minneapolis police killed George Floyd on May 25, a poll was released showing a tight race between Joe Biden and President Donald Trump in Minnesota.
While thought to be a reliably blue state in presidential elections, Minnesota is emerging as a sleeper battleground in 2020. It is far too early to tell if, or how, Floyd’s death or the explosive Minneapolis protests that followed it could impact the November elections. But some political experts are wondering if peaceful protests mixed with violence and destruction could scare the state’s swing voters — particularly white suburban women — that Democrats need to win in the state.
“I think in the suburbs, people are saying you can’t have police officers asphyxiating somebody,” said David Schultz, a political science professor at Hamline University in St. Paul. On the other hand, he added, “I can see a lot of these suburban voters who voted Democrat in 2018 saying, ‘well gosh, maybe Trump can bring law and order here or bring some peace.’”
The Star Tribune/MPR/KARE 11 poll published on May 25 found the former vice president leading Trump by just 5 points, 49-44 percent, with 7 percent undecided. The poll had a margin of error of 3.5 points.
Minnesota has a Democratic governor and two Democratic US senators, but also a split state legislature, with the state Senate controlled by Republicans and state House controlled by Democrats. The 2016 election results showed the state pretty evenly split. That year, Hillary Clinton carried Minnesota by just 1.5 percentage points, winning just nine of its 87 counties. Trump’s showing in the state was surprising.
“Minnesota is one of those states where Donald Trump was quite successful in mobilizing racial resentment and building support on that,” said Larry Jacobs, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota. The question of whether the Minneapolis protests mean Trump will have more success with that message in 2020, is still unknowable.
“Going back to 1968 and looking at what Trump is trying to do but not well, there is this law-and-order card. It was terrifying to watch Minneapolis burn,” Jacobs added. “That has unnerved the suburbs and if that poll had run today, it would be a tossup.”
While much of the media attention has been on unrest and violence in clashes between police and protesters, Floyd’s graphic killing caught on video inspired many peaceful protests around the country — including some in predominantly white areas of the state like Duluth, or just across the border in Fargo, North Dakota.
“The violent protests, Trump will certainly try to use them for backlash purposes. So the question is will that be drowned out by the peaceful protests,” said August Nimtz, a professor of political science and African American studies at the University of Minnesota. He added, “The fact that Fargo and Duluth have seen actions suggest this may be something different. The breadth of the outrage is a reflection of the changing attitudes about race, and blacks being seen in a much more human way than was historically the case in the US.

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