ST. PAUL, Minn. – The state Republican chair, Jennifer Carnahan, claimed that the November 3 election showed “extreme abnormalities and statistical variations from Minnesota’s historic voter trends.” But an analysis of particulars in Carnahan’s sweeping claims, by David Montgomery of Minnesota Public Radio, found otherwise. “Her examples are either off-base, vague or flat-out wrong,” he said. As an example, Montgomery noted that Carnahan’s general claim that it’s “unusual” that President Donald Trump did worse in Minnesota in 2020 than 2016, despite putting much more effort into winning the state this year. Said Montgomery: “This is relatively vague, so it’s hard to firmly prove or disprove.” It’s true, he said, Trump put a lot more effort into Minnesota in 2020 than 2016, but it’s also true that Joe Biden put in more effort here than Hillary Clinton did. Combine that with a national collapse in support for third-party candidates, and national polling indicating that Biden as a Democratic candidate was more popular than Clinton was, and the idea that Biden might do better isn’t absurd, he said.
Carnahan. Chair of the Minnesota Republican Party since 2017 and ardent Trump supporter. Her professional experience is corporate brand marketing.
