Hot dish 092324

By Josie Albertson-Grove

Good Monday morning and we are picking up where the Friday newsletter left off, with the first round of results from the Minnesota Poll, brought to you by the Star Tribune, MPR News and KARE 11.

Rochelle Olson and Janet Moore went head-first into the results and spoke to some of the poll respondents.

The presidential race is close but Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris has a slight lead at 48% to Republican former President Donald Trump’s 43%. And the poll showed there are precious few persuadable voters, Olson writes. More than 90% of those polled characterized themselves as either “very enthusiastic” or “somewhat enthusiastic” about their choice.

One voter who opposes Trump, St. Paul Park substitute teacher Valarie Jakosa, said she has in the past been open to Republican candidates, but not this one because of his role in the failed insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

“I don’t see how somebody could do what the former president did and still be allowed to run for president,” Jakosa said.

Another poll respondent, Nathan Witte of Fridley, supports Trump, even if he isn’t “necessarily a big fan of his personality all of the time or his rhetoric or the way he talks to people.”

Witte said he hopes for more local control over revenue and tighter restraints at the borders.

Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar has a solid lead over her Republican challenger, former NBA player Royce White, 51% to 40%. Which implies there are people who plan to vote for Trump but not White.

Poll respondent Brandon Shaw of Hopkins said he likes Klobuchar because he sees her as someone who can get stuff done in a polarized political environment. “People talk past each other; it’s detrimental to democracy,” he said.

Another respondent, Matt Thomas, a dairy farmer from Lakeville, ranks the economy and inflation among his top issues. He’s voting straight down the Republican ticket, including White, because he believes the party’s candidates will improve the economy.

“I’ve never been so broke as I have been in the last four years,” he said. “It’s ugly and disastrous.”

Be on the lookout for more Minnesota Poll content this week. I’ll have a story in tomorrow’s paper (and tomorrow’s politics newsletter!) and we’ll have more coverage on Wednesday about other questions, including how a representative sample of 800 Minnesotans think Gov. Tim Walz has been doing as governor and what they think of him now that he’s running for vice president.

LOCAL RACES: I spent some time over the last couple weeks trying to get a sense of the Trump campaign’s ground game, and found ... not much. Most of Republicans’ focus seems to be on the race to recapture the state Legislature.

Republican ambitions seem a little smaller, after a bout of early-summer optimism about flipping the state for Trump, instead focusing on the hope of winning back the state House of Representatives by flipping a few districts.

The AP also reported this week that Trump campaigning has not been felt in much swingier states.

Team Trump did announce a bus tour in Wisconsin for the coming week. That’ll include a stop just across the river in Hudson, featuring local Wisconsin politicians and GOP leaders, a Moms for Liberty chapter head and Texas Rep. Troy Nehls, who represents suburban Houston, and Kash Patel, who denied being part of a 2019 backchannel from Trump to Ukraine via Rudy Giuliani.

Reporting this story involved a road trip from Lakeville to Mankato to scope out Trump offices, and during which I stopped at the Northfield Culvers, where I saw a table of clowns in full makeup having lunch next to a table of tiaraed teenage pageant contestants. Never have I so fervently wished I was traveling with a photographer.

Lucky for me, photographer Glen Stubbe was along for the ride when I went out to Lake Elmo with Republican legislative candidate Wayne Johnson last week, and the anecdote about Johnson’s shoes is thanks to Stubbe asking about them.

Anyway, even if you don’t care about Republicans or think I’m a hack, the story is worth a click if only for Stubbe’s photo of a little Muppet of an Australian Shepherd puppy we met at one door.

BALLOT MIX-UP: Listen, typos happen. Take it from the institution that publishes thousands of words every day. If we really screw up, we publish a correction and move on (though sometimes our oopsies revisit us around 3:30 a.m. when we’re struggling to fall asleep).

The stakes are far higher than lost sleep when a typo happens on ballots.

Secretary of State Steve Simon’s office said Faribault County somehow switched the parties of two state representative candidates when it was printing ballots, Greta Kaul reported.

For the record, Rep. Peggy Bennett is a Republican, and challenger Joe Staloch is a DFLer. The error came out when a constituent called Bennett to ask why she’d switched parties.

Because each county prints its own ballots, the error only affected Faribault County, not the other 23A counties of Freeborn, Steele and Waseca. The misprint affected 17 ballots.

County officials will make sure voters who already voted know about the issue and are able to cast ballots for their preferred candidates and political parties.

For some background Faribault reading, check out this Curious Minnesota piece reporter Trey Mewes wrote a few months ago on how the city became home to Minnesota’s deaf and blind academies. The piece does not address why the city’s name isn’t spelled Fairbault.

WHERE’S WALZ:

Gov. Tim Walz is in New York this afternoon, speaking at a “series of receptions,” per the campaign, before returning to St. Paul tonight. Walz is fresh off yet another rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.

READING LIST

Keep us posted at hotdish@startribune.com.

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