PRIOR LAKE - Democrats from the Twin Cities’ southern suburbs gathered in a Prior Lake ballroom last Sunday with an odd emotion about Minnesota’s Republican-held 2nd Congressional District: hope.
“The tide is blue in CD2,” Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chairman Ken Martin declared in a speech.
Republican Rep. John Kline has long won comfortably in the 2nd District, which stretches from the southern suburbs south to Northfield, Zumbrota and Plainview. But Democratic President Barack Obama won the district in both of his elections, and now Kline’s retirement has Democrats believing in victory.
This liberal optimism stems from hard data: the leftward march of the Minneapolis-St. Paul suburbs. Areas once won regularly by Republicans became swing districts and now lean toward the DFL. This applies not only to the innermost ring of suburbs - many of which have become DFL strongholds - but to the second and even third ring of suburbs, which are all far more hospitable places for Democrats than they were during the Clinton administration.
Twenty years ago, Republican legislative candidates averaged more than 60 percent of the vote in cities such as Edina, Eagan, Bloomington and Minnetonka, according to a Pioneer Press analysis. Over the past three elections, all of those cities have averaged majority support for Democrats.
Cities such as Plymouth, Burnsville and Arden Hills are undergoing a similar shift but with a slower trajectory. Those three cities have averaged a very slight majority for Republicans in recent legislative elections but are trending leftward.
“I am feeling very positive about our prospects to push out further into the suburbs,” said House DFL leader Paul Thissen of Minneapolis.
Republicans acknowledge the trend but point to a silver lining for them: As Democrats have done better in the inner suburbs, Republicans have done better in the faster-growing outer suburbs. Cities such as Chanhassen, Lakeville, Ham Lake and even Prior Lake, where Democrats gathered last week, remain Republican strongholds. Outer suburbs like these have shown little growth in Democratic performance - and have even become more Republican.
“What used to be the exurbs are now becoming the suburbs,” said former House Speaker Kurt Zellers, from solid-red Maple Grove. “I think that bodes well for us.”
