U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Thursday she is running for governor of Minnesota, promising to take on Donald Trump while unifying a state that has endured a series of challenges even before the federal government’s immigration crackdown.
Klobuchar’s decision gives Democrats a high-profile candidate and proven statewide winner as their party tries to hold onto the office occupied by Gov. Tim Walz.
Klobuchar cited Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, federal officers killing two Minnesotans who protested, the assassination of a state legislative leader and a school shooting that killed multiple children — all within the last year. She avoided direct mention of ongoing fraud investigations into the child care programs that Trump has made a political cudgel.
Ilhan Omar.
Not only is she right (and votes what she says) about just about every single policy issue, she’s also proven without a doubt that she’s every bit the fighter Centrist bloviators pretend to be, what with enduring the constant scapegoating from both Republicans and her own party as well as hardly breaking her stride after being attacked by a MAGA cultist
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.
The only way the Dems win is if they move left.
No! Left!
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.
Fun fact: there’s not a lot of those available for House raises, so that’s a worthless datapoint wrt comparing her and Omar.
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.
Vote percentage comparisons are valid between local and statewide races.
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.
Klobuchar vote percentage in November 2024 election: 56.2%
Omar vote percentage in November 2024 election: 75.3%
You were saying?
That’s just you being wrong 🤷
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.
If you mean Union Strong, then yes.
If you mean “there being rural folks means that they’re automatically more conservative than other democrat strongholds”, then nope. Wrong again.
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…
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.
Sure, but you don’t seem to be proposing any change or thinking about how they could do better. You just kinda repeat media talking points and the same outlook that establishment dems keep using to eek out a win in a suppressed voting block that doesn’t turn out for milquetoast candidates. Minnesota is currently activated and organized, if there were to be a change it would have to harness this momentum and move forward now.
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.
Sorry for the frustration in my voice but I’m kinda getting sick and tired of the ratchet effect happening in America. I hope something coalesces around a further left candidate than Klobachar, I know Ilhan Omar has some current talk around her, if she’d even run is another question. I know that for the US Minnesota does turn out the vote more than elsewhere nationally but there’s still a quarter of the population on average who don’t vote.
All that being said, good luck to you and yours. A lot of what I’m hearing, and the people I’m organizing with are reinforcing the idea that we need more leftists in local politics. It’s only gonna change from the ground up.
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.