CHRIS CRUCIAL: Can Donald Trump win Minnesota?

PLUS: Ask me anything!

Welcome to Chris Crucial. This nightly newsletter — in which I summarize all the political news you need to know from the day that was — is for paid subscribers only. Check out my mission statement on why you should invest in me. It’s $6 a month/$60 for the year! 👇

1. Trump tries to expand the playing field

Donald Trump has been talking a lot lately about how he is going to expand the electoral map into places like New Jersey, New York and New Mexico.

I generally ignore these boasts because, well, there ain’t no way Trump is a) winning any of those states or b) spending a dime on TV in any of states.

But then there’s Minnesota — about which Trump has been fascinated (and fixated) for some time now.

That fixation started in 2016 when, with little effort and no money, he came very, very close to winning. He lost by 1% to Hillary Clinton — and the two candidates were separated by less than 50,000 votes (out of more than 2.5 million cast).

It was the closest a Republican presidential nominee had come to winning the state in decades. The last Republican to carry Minnesota was Richard Nixon in 1972. (Walter Mondale won only one state against Ronald Reagan in 1984 — his home state of Minnesota!)

That near-miss convinced Trump he could win the state in 2020. Trump visited the state during the campaign and promised to spend significant resources there. This, from the New York Times in October 2019, was indicative of their bravado about their spending and their chances:

Brad Parscale, the president’s campaign manager, is planning to pour tens of millions of dollars into the campaign’s Minnesota operation, compared with the $30,000 the Trump campaign spent on the state last cycle. The campaign already has 20 paid staff members in the state, and expects to expand to 100. And the campaign and the Republican National Committee are outspending Democrats by about four to one on digital advertising, according to campaign officials and local Democratic Party officials.

“It is a full-on major effort state campaign,” said Tim Murtaugh, a Trump campaign spokesman. “And we will have the resources behind it to make it count.”

And then there was this — from Trump at an October 2020 rally in Duluth: “I lose Minnesota, I'm never coming back. I'm never coming back!”

Well, he did lose. In 2020, Joe Biden beat Trump 52%-45% in the state. (Still, that margin made it one of the 10 closest states in the country.)

And, he is coming back — tonight, specifically, to headline the state GOP’s Lincoln Reagan Dinner in St. Paul.