The "moderate swing voter" that the DNC leadership and the billionaire-owned media pretend to be the end-all be-all for Democrats has been a critically endangered species for decades while the politically disenfranchised Left takes up at least a third of eligible voters nationwide and even more in states with strong union traditions like Minnesota.

I agree that the swing voter demo is largely a myth of the ruling class, but there are a fair amount of moderate voters, but they mainly identify with one of the two major parties.

You sure about that? Because people like Omar, Walz, Franken, and Norm Coleman all seem (with the exception of parts of Walz' platform) to be MUCH more progressive than the majority of Democrats from Neoliberal bastions like New York, California, and Chicago.

Franken only won by like 300ish votes, IIRC, during the recount. Coleman became a Republican, so yes, he was definitely more moderate. Or at least more willing to forfeit his principals for continued power. And the last time he ran as a Dem was 1996. Omar is very progressive, not even a question. But she represents one of the bluest portions of an already blue state. Even our first-ring districts are closer to purple - the 2nd district is only D+3; the 3rd is propped up by Bloomington, else it would be more competitive.

And yes, the Farm Labor part has been shrinking. Outstate areas haven't necessarily become more conservative, but the aforementioned Fox-ification has turned a lot of rural voters against those who would better represent and promote their needs. Propaganda is a hell of a drug - and de-propagandizing them will take a long time, unfortunately. We definitely have our work cut out for ourselves.

Yet Omar won her election by a HUGE margin last time, Klobuchar much less so. Partially BECAUSE of her national profile as a darling of the Left.

Yes, this is true. Her increased exposure, especially after the formation of the Squad, has propelled her higher than would reasonably be expected otherwise. Our next most progressive Representative is likely unknown to most people that aren't political nerds or live in her district, even though they've voted in tandem for much of their time in the House.

Nah man, I hear ya. Ratchet effect and the Overton Window are a real thing. And it's been extremely damaging to the working class here in the States.

And yeah, we really need to get our farm league (so to speak) ramped up, and quick. The Rs are shit, but they understood that to take control of the system, you need people at all levels, working towards your goals. Us on the left seem to forget that it, it seems. We focus so much on the higher-profile races and don't put forward enough city council, school board, state House races, etc., which is where a lot of the stuff that affects people in their every day lives is decided - tax rates/breaks, incentives, school funding, and the like.

Fun fact: there's not a lot of those available for House raises, so that's a worthless datapoint wrt comparing her and Omar.

Vote percentage comparisons are valid between local and statewide races.

More reliably than Omar has been getting votes from people who would never vote for a zionist? Or that would never vote for someone who approves ICE funding? I highly doubt it.

That's your prerogative, but unfortunately, I don't believe there's more of us on the left than there are centrist/moderate/whatever voters that aren't turned off by those positions. MN is a blue state, but it's a very Midwest-style of democrat. The Farm-Labor part of the coalition has been shrinking in the past 20 years or so, as races have become more nationalized even on the local level.

Believe me, I know MN is activated now. I'm not that far away from the shitstorm in Minneapolis.

Also, stating data is not "repeating media talking points". I'd love for a progressive to be able to win a state-wide race. The current problem is that none have shown much (or any) interest in throwing their hat into the Governor's race currently.

Additionally, there's no real "suppressed voting block" in MN; we have some of the highest voter turnout/engagement in the nation - a fact we're very proud of and something we work at to keep it as high as it is.

The current Governor's race has less than 10 months to go, so we'll need someone already engaged in politics - even at the local level would hopefully be good enough, but it would be a tough slog. The main sticking issue for the general will be name recognition; we have good voter engagement (as mentioned previously).

It definitely helps that the likely Republican opposition will be lead by the batshit crazy Mike Lindell, so that would lower the potential issues a lesser-known candidate would face - everyone's already made up their mind on him.

She's gotten a higher vote total than other Democrats that have been up for election in the years that she's run in. Her margins have been noticeably higher.

That said, I would love a much more DFL (rather than just Democrat) candidate that could post good state-wide numbers. The challenge is in finding them.

I'd vote for Omar in a second, but the Fox News-ification of outstate MN will make it challenging to say the least, unfortunately. It would really take a dedicated messaging team to even start to undue the propaganda against her.

And before you go "but she's too divisive! No Republicans or swing voters would vote for her!", the vast majority of them wouldn't vote for Klobuchar either, and she (Omar) would bring out the base several times better.

This is demonstrably false, given Klobuchar's outstate vote totals. For all her issues, she has been reliably able to get voters to vote for her that wouldn't vote for a Democrat otherwise.

Like I said, there's no candidates that would likely be able to win statewide that haven't already said they were running for other positions. Our current Lt. Governor is running for Tina Smith's Senate seat (she's retiring at the end of the term).

That may change in the future, but none currently.

She's outperformed other Democrats in the years she's run, so not sure if relying on this platform is a good representation of our state.

As for other challengers, I'm not sure. Not a lot of other higher-profile DLFers that haven't already thrown their hat into other races.

No, OP, we did not turn over a copy of our voter roles. Our Secretary of State told them to go pound sand. Not sure why you'd think a state with this much sense of community and voter engagement would give in to the fascist overlords.

I Second that.