Midterms in Minnesota: We Need a Working-Class Party, Not a Blue Wave

Minnesota has had an explosive political year. The ICE offensive in the Twin Cities that Trump kicked off this winter gave rise to one of the most combative mass movements we’ve seen in recent years. Tens of thousands took to the streets time and time again, sometimes in arctic subzero weather, and twice they shut down the economic function of the entire Twin Cities Metro as part of their fight against ICE. Not only that, they formed vast Rapid Response Networks, organized from below, that kept watch for ICE in each neighborhood and coordinated direct action when ICE tried to kidnap their neighbors. 

Operation Metro Surge, and the massive mobilizations against it, loom large over the midterms this year.

For the Trump administration, Minnesota is not just another state; it is strategic. If Republicans win there, they don’t just gain a Senate or House seat, they gain ground in a state whose people humiliated them earlier this year, rising up so forcefully that ICE and the Trump administration were forced to retreat. The MAGA wing of the Republican Party is determined not to repeat this defeat, which weakened the Trump regime, and Republican advances in this state would represent some small revenge against the activists of the Twin Cities Metro. GOP wins would also shore up far-right forces in the state, shifting the balance of power in a highly politicized area slightly more towards the Trump administration.

This complicates the situation for Democrats as well. They will have to toe a careful line to prove they won’t anger the administration, a task made even more complex by the fact that Democrats’ most popular candidates are their more progressive DSA-aligned politicians. This progressive wing of the Democratic Party is already facing these types of challenges, stuck between delivering on promises to their constituents and not angering the Trump administration, especially in blue states that are the target of ICE and imposed austerity by the federal government (a case in point: Zohran Mamdani has taken heat recently for softening his stance on policing).

In this political battleground, eight seats in the House of Representatives will be decided in Minnesota, and one Senate seat is up for grabs. The state will also elect a new governor, as incumbent Democrat Tim Walz announced he will not seek reelection. Democrats and Republicans have poured millions of dollars into these campaigns, grappling for power as they struggle to regain legitimacy amid deep disappointment with both parties.

While distrust in both parties is widespread in Minnesota and across the nation, many seeking to fight the Far Right are once again calling to “vote blue no matter who,” advocating for a blue wave. But Minnesota’s political uprisings in both 2020 and 2026, as well as the failure of Minnesota Democrats to take any meaningful action to meet the demands of those movements, show us clearly that no capitalist party is coming to save us.

Rather than relying on the Democratic Party, we must organize ourselves, from below, to fight the Far Right and the entire capitalist system, relying on our own strength and organization to win our demands, just as Minnesotans did this winter when they fought back against Operation Metro Surge. In elections, we must run not capitalist politicians who work only to crush our movements and maintain the capitalist system, but working-class, independent socialist candidates. Running candidates like this, within an independent, working-class party, would help us unite and strengthen our struggles, fighting with our own program both in Congress and in the streets. If Minnesota has shown us anything, it has shown us that we need a working-class alternative to a blue wave.

One of the more scandalous news stories looming over the midterms in Minnesota is the Medicaid fraud story that broke in May of 2025. This scandal uncovered a web of Medicaid fraud orchestrated by Minnesotans who ultimately stole millions of dollars from the state health care fund. Although not national news right away, the Trump Administration brought the story back into the news cycle in January of this year in order to attack Democratic governor and former vice presidential candidate Tim Walz.

A clear attempt to retaliate against Walz for his criticism of Trump and Operation Metro Surge, this rehashing of the fraud scandal ultimately led to an announcement from the governor that he would not seek reelection. Running to fill his seat are Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar and Republican state House speaker Lisa Demuth. At the time of writing, Klobuchar holds a strong lead, 56 percent to Demuth’s 38 percent.

But the fraud story didn’t only result in Walz’s decision not to seek reelection. The Trump administration went on to pin the entire fraud on the Somali community in the Twin Cities (despite the fact that a white woman led the operation), stirring up racism against the community across conservative, anti-immigrant sectors. In a Truth Social post, Trump ranted, “Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great State, and BILLIONS of Dollars are missing. Send them back to where they came from.” That same day, Trump announced that he was ending Temporary Protected Status for Somali immigrants, which was officially terminated this summer.

U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar, an immigrant from Somalia representing Minnesota’s Fifth Congressional District, was especially targeted by these attacks. Trump wrote on Truth Social in January, “‘Scammer’ Ilhan Omar and her absolutely terrible friends from Somalia should all be in jail right now, or far worse, send them back to Somalia.” The attacks against Omar reached a new peak just a few weeks ago, when the Trump administration sent federal agents to her home as part of a manufactured investigation into her immigration status.

These racist, anti-immigrant attacks are not just about Omar; they are an especially heinous tactic to gain favor with conservative Minnesotans and win key votes for the GOP. Despite the uprisings against Operation Metro Surge, there is still a large portion of the population, especially in rural areas, who are deeply anti-immigrant, and the MAGA wing of the Republican Party is clearly hoping that this voter base will respond positively to anti-immigrant and anti-activist strong-arming.

Minnesota’s eight seats in the House of Representatives will also be decided on Tuesday, and although these districts aren’t projected to flip, loss of faith in both the Democrats and Republicans in the last two years has put both parties on edge, and they continue to pour money into House races that in past elections might have been sure bets.

However, District Two, just south of the Twin Cities, has an open seat, vacated by incumbent Democrat Angie Craig. This seat is the most-watched House seat in Minnesota, as it has gone Democratic in recent election cycles, but represents a potential opportunity for Republicans to win due to its moderate voter base.

Hoping to win the seat are Republican Eric Pratt and Democrat Matt Little. Pratt, a long-time banker running mostly on anti-fraud rhetoric, has been able to distance himself from the MAGA sector of the party, avoiding much of the fallout more Trump-aligned Republicans are facing. Democrat Matt Little is running on an ICE reform platform, though with moderate rhetoric, hoping to capture the support of both anti-ICE voters and voters who lean conservative but feel ICE went too far this winter.

The most-watched race in the state, though, is undoubtedly the competition for Senate. One Senate seat is up for grabs in Minnesota this election cycle, vacated by the retirement of long-time Democratic incumbent Tina Smith. Democrat Peggy Flanagan and Republican Michele Tafoya will face off to fill the seat. Flanagan, the current lieutenant governor under Tim Walz, easily defeated Representative Craig in her primary after earning endorsements from Bernie Sanders, speaking out against ICE, and calling for a ceasefire in Palestine. If victorious, Flanagan — a member of the Anishinaabe tribe — will also be the first Indigenous woman to serve in the U.S. Senate.

Former journalist Michele Tafoya, on the other hand, has built an anti-corruption, law-and-order campaign, leaning heavily on anti-immigrant, pro-police, and anti-trans rhetoric. Tafoya seeks to capture the exact opposite demographic that Flanagan has successfully won over — this is not a battle between two moderates hoping to win over swing voters, but a fight between two very different candidates to turn out the most votes from their respective bases.

At the time of writing, Flanagan leads Tafoya 47.4 percent to 43.8 percent, and this race is shaping up to be a long shot for Republicans, but they are desperate to maintain control over the Senate as their popularity continues to wane, and are therefore willing to pour vast resources into Tafoya’s campaign: Republicans have outspent Democrats in this race by nearly five million dollars. Although seemingly unlikely, a Republican victory in the Minnesota Senate race would be hugely important, as control of the Senate could go either way, and Republicans are increasingly nervous about maintaining their existing seats as distrust and disappointment in the party sweep through the conservative countryside across the U.S.

While on the national stage, Minnesota tends to be seen as a blue stronghold in the Midwest, the truth is that there is a deep political division between the rural and urban areas, and the vast rural farmlands tend to vote Republican. As such, the Democrats’ strength in Minnesota comes primarily from their base in urban areas, namely, the Twin Cities Metro.

During and after Operation Metro Surge, the legitimacy of the Democratic Party establishment took a blow among the most progressive sectors in this key urban area. Democrats like establishment-aligned Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey and Governor Walz denounced Operation Metro Surge, but never went so far as to call to abolish ICE and did very little to challenge the Trump administration or to remove ICE from the state.

This failure to act reinforced Frey and Walz’s all-talk-no-action reputation among Minnesotans, which began to form in 2020 when they similarly denounced police brutality but took no steps toward any reforms. While outside of Minnesota, Walz and Frey have earned spotlight stories and high praise from bourgeois media, Twin Cities activists have largely rejected them — anyone who has attended a protest in Minneapolis during the 2020 or 2026 uprisings can attest to the number of signs decrying Jacob Frey and Tim Walz as cowards unwilling to fight. This activist base in Minneapolis, made up largely of twenty-somethings, tends to gravitate much more toward progressive Democrats like Ilhan Omar and Omar Fateh — the DSA-endorsed Minnesota state representative dubbed “the Mamdani of the Midwest” who nearly unseated Frey as mayor last year.

While neither of them are on the ballot this year, the unpopularity of Walz and Frey, and establishment Democrats more generally, is coloring other races in Minnesota. As part of her race for re-election, Ilhan Omar recently hosted an event alongside Fateh and left-wing influencer Hassan Piker. This choice drew criticism from establishment Democrats and Republicans, but Piker’s appeal to young activist sectors is undeniable.

Clearly hoping to maintain distance from the Democratic Party establishment, Omar did not arrange for appearances by Frey or Walz, nor any establishment-aligned Democrats at all. Omar is highly unlikely to lose her seat, and this event will likely not impact the outcome of her race. But this move, unpopular with more moderate sectors, will certainly help her consolidate her reputation as being left of the Democratic Party establishment and will likely help her garner trust among the left-leaning population of the Twin Cities.

In the most recent gubernatorial debate, Democratic candidate Amy Klobuchar also actively distanced herself from Walz. When her opponent tried to tie her reputation to Walz, Klobuchar quickly responded, “I could list a number of ways I’m different than Tim Walz. I know you wish you were debating Tim Walz, but I’m the one here right now.” While Klobuchar is much less invested in appealing to the base of Twin Cities activists skeptical of Walz and is instead aiming for a moderate approach to capture both progressives and fence-sitters (her campaign’s focus is mostly economic, with promises to also “root out crime and fraud”), she is nevertheless trying to brand herself as an alternative to the Democrats who have been so disappointing in recent years.

Discontent with the Democratic Party is undeniable, and Minnesota is no exception. This is not to say Minnesotans disappointed by the Democrats will not vote Democratic this midterm election, but Democratic candidates across Minnesota are struggling to maintain a voter base amid deep dealignment in the party. Across the country, support for establishment Democrats in this moment tends to express a rejection of Trump and the Far Right more than an endorsement of the establishment wing of the Democratic Party. Analysts are predicting a “blue wave,” and Minnesota is likely to go blue, too, but that does not mean that the Democrats have not fallen from grace in the eyes of many across the state.

While the Republican Party holds a firm grip on the countryside in Minnesota, rural folks’ opinions of the party are slipping. Mostly motivated by the ongoing economic crisis and the ongoing war in Iran, Republican voters are less and less convinced to stand by the party, especially the Trump-aligned sector. One recent poll shows that in rural America, only 45 percent of Republican voters say Trump has improved their local economies, and almost half say the U.S. economy is worse off now than it was when Trump took office in 2024. These voters are even more frustrated with the Trump administration due to the spike in cost-of-living as a result of the Iran War, especially impacting farmers who rely on fertilizer, which is astronomically more expensive due to the war. This unpopularity among typically Republican voters, along with the defeat of Operation Metro Surge, has put the Trump Administration in its weakest position yet.

In Minnesota, this has pushed many Republican candidates to distance themselves from the GOP establishment, just as many Democratic candidates attempt to set themselves apart from their own establishment. In the same debate where Klobuchar announced that she is very different from Walz, her Republican opponent Lisa Demuth clarified that she is not aligned with Trump on key issues. When asked about the war in Iran and the cost-of-living crisis, she responded,

When it comes to the war and the increased prices that are a result of that, it is hurting Minnesotans, and I absolutely acknowledge that. President Trump and I are different people. I was not his pick to endorse for governor here in the state of Minnesota, but I think as we’ve watched things go forward, it is time to put an end to that war. I really believe that we know that it is causing more expenses, as I’ve mentioned, groceries and fertilizer in our [agricultural] community.

While she has never explicitly denounced Trump, Demuth has been careful to set herself apart on the issues most important to Republican voters, creating distance between herself and the MAGA wing.

In the most-contested House of Representatives race in the state — the race for House District Two — Republican Eric Pratt has also tried to gain ground by intentionally distancing himself from the Trump administration. In an embarrassing mishap earlier this year, an AI prompt used to generate rhetoric for his campaign was accidentally published on Pratt’s website. The prompt read, “The President is not popular, so all messaging should be focused on local politics and needs.”

In addition to this blunder, which clearly shows the game Republicans are playing to win despite discontent with Trump, Pratt has intentionally denounced the president’s actions. He has stated publicly that he disagrees with Trump’s tariffs, does not support the war in Iran, and feels the balance of power is unequal in Washington, with the president overstepping while Congress takes too much of a back seat. Candidates distancing themselves from the Republican establishment is indicative of the weakness of the Trump administration and the depth of the crisis of the party. Whether Republicans distancing themselves from Trump will regain the trust of conservative voters in rural Minnesota or the blue wave will prevail remains an open question.

What is most clear this midterm season, both in Minnesota and across the country, is that people are fed up with both capitalist parties. MAGA Republicans have fallen from grace among even sectors of their most loyal supporters. The Democratic Party establishment has been eclipsed in trust by DSA-backed progressives amongst a large portion of their base. Both parties are losing favor, and they deserve it. The Democrats and Republicans, in their devout and unchangeable alliance to capitalism, do nothing but throw the working class and oppressed under the bus time and time again, using our suffering and our demands only as leverage to win elections.

Because of the far-right attacks on immigrants this year, as well as the ongoing warmongering in the Middle East at the hands of the Trump administration, many feel moved to vote for the Democratic Party as a lesser evil, but Minnesota’s political experiences in the last few years show that voting for Democrats does not provide a solution. Minnesota has shown us that the best way to fight the Far Right is by organizing ourselves and mobilizing against our oppressors. 

Did Jacob Frey and Tim Walz, Minnesota’s most prominent Democrats, drive ICE out of the city? No, the people of the Twin Cities did that, organized from below and willing to confront tear gas, pepper spray, and riot gear head on, even shutting down the economy of their city not once, but twice. The power of these mobilizations, not the negotiations of the Democrats, forced Trump’s hand. 

Did these same Democrats take any action to address the demands of the BLM movement — did they defund the police, or even make any meaningful reforms regarding the police force (which we know would not solve the problem of policing anyway)? No, they did not. In fact, they have increased the policing budgets of the state and the Twin Cities every year since 2020.

No Democrat is coming to save us from the Far Right or from the crises capitalism inflicts upon us — Minnesotans have seen that very clearly. What we need, as Minnesotans showed us, is an independent fight against the Far Right and the entire capitalist system, organized from below. 

We don’t need a “blue wave,” but a working-class party that fights for socialism each and every day, running workers candidates who are beholden to their fellow workers, not to capitalist interests. A party like this could help us unite our struggles — it could unite the struggle against ICE in the Twin Cities with the struggle against U.S.-funded war and genocide in the Middle East and the struggle against ongoing far-right attacks on queer people. A party like this, a party of combat, organized by the working class and for the working class, independent of capitalists, is possible. Minnesotans, let’s not put our trust in a “blue wave” to save us — we must save ourselves.