Minnesotans Voted Blue, but Democrats Didn’t Defeat ICE

Almost one year after Operation Metro Surge shook the Twin Cities, Minnesotans turned out to the polls in huge numbers — the state had the second-highest voter turnout in the nation behind Maine. Motivated by the cost-of-living crisis, rejection of the war in Iran, outrage at the ongoing genocide in Palestine, and their experience living through the ICE offensive of last winter, Minnesotans overwhelmingly chose Democrats over Republicans. Only in three rural farmland House districts did Republicans win their races; the Governor’s Mansion, a Senate seat, and five of the state’s eight House of Representatives seats went to Democrats.

While these results represent an enormous rejection of Trumpism, it is important for Minnesotans to remember that one of Trump’s biggest political defeats came not from the ballot box or the Democratic Party, but from the mass movement against ICE in the Twin Cities last winter. Our strength is not in which capitalist politician we elect, but in our own self-organized struggle. A blue wave won’t help us build our power and win our demands — we need a working-class party that fights for socialism.

In the Governor’s race, Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar and Republican State Representative Lisa Demuth faced off for Tim Walz’s seat, which he announced he would leave earlier this year after a Medicare fraud scandal shook the state government. The clear frontrunner since the beginning, Klobuchar easily won the night, becoming the first woman to serve as Governor of Minnesota.

While Democrats have held the Governor’s Mansion since 2011, Klobuchar won by a larger margin than Walz ever did — he won his first election by 10 points and won re-election in 2022 by just over seven points; Klobuchar beat Demuth by over 13. Most notably, and reflective of the deep dissatisfaction with the Republican Party, Klobuchar gained more support in the rural farmlands than Democrats have in years.

Typically, Democrats win office in Minnesota based on the urban vote in Rochester, Duluth, and the Twin Cities, but Klobuchar won even typically Republican counties. Seven rural counties that voted strongly Republican in 2024 flipped parties to vote Klobuchar in this governor’s race, with some flipping by nearly 15 percentage points. Every single county in the state voted more strongly in favor of Democrats in this governor’s race than they did in the 2024 Presidential election. Voters cited the cost-of-living crisis, the war on Iran, attacks on immigrants, and “government corruption” as key issues in their vote this year, and overwhelmingly shifted away from the Republican Party as a result.

In the Senate, one seat was up for grabs, and Democrat Peggy Flanagan easily beat Republican Michele Tafoya by over 10 points. Neither candidate was incumbent as the seat was being vacated by retirement, but the seat has been strongly Democrat since 2009 and was expected to go to Flanagan. More left-leaning than Klobuchar, however, Flanagan was unable to capture the rural areas to the same extent.

Of the seven rural counties that Klobuchar flipped, Flanagan was only able to flip three, and while every county in the state voted more Democrat in the Governor’s race than they did last Presidential election, some counties actually voted more Republican in this race, with rural counties tending to favor Tafoya. Flanagan is aligned more with the progressive populist wing of the Democratic Party than the establishment wing, earning the support of Bernie Sanders early on and running with priorities like ICE abolition and an end to the genocide in Palestine — in her victory speech on Tuesday, she proudly shouted to the crowd that she plans to “rip ICE apart.”

These stances set Flanagan apart from more centrist Democrats in the state like Klobuchar and gave her less success in capturing the votes of Republican-turned-Democratic voters in rural areas. Nevertheless, she won her race and will join the senate as the first Indigenous woman to do so.

As predicted, the Democrats did best inMinnesota’s cities. The House districts around the Twin Cities went Democratic by even larger margins than in the last election. In the Second District, just south of the Twin Cities, Democrats won by 15 points, whereas the district only favored Harris in the 2024 presidential race by five points. In the Third District, northwest of the Twin Cities, they won by almost 30 points, up from Harris’s 21-point lead in 2024. Northeast of the Twin Cities, in the Fourth District, Democrats won by almost 47 points, whereas the incumbent won by around 35 points in the last election, and the district favored Harris by the same margin.

In the Fifth District, representing Minneapolis, Ilhan Omar won re-election by over 60 points. She won by just shy of 50 points last time, and the district voted for Harris by almost 62 points. Although she was not in danger of losing her seat, Omar — a progressive populist Democrat with a strong relationship to Democratic Socialists of America — has been the target of major attacks from the Trump Administration this year. A long-time Trump critic, Omar spoke strongly against Operation Metro Surge this winter, and the administration has targeted her with racist, anti-Muslim attacks in the lead-up to the midterms.

Accusing her of immigration fraud, Trump had her home raided by the FBI just a few weeks ago, a clear retaliation against her anti-Trump rhetoric and a warning to the entire state that humiliated the Trump Administration last winter. While the attacks stirred up anti-Somali racism in the rural areas, they were not enough to damage her lead, and she serve a fifth term.

Notably, in Omar’s race, independent Develle Jackson took over seven percent, not too far behind the Republican, who took 16. Jackson ran as an independent with a campaign built on self-determination for Palestine, increased taxes on the rich, free and universal healthcare, and enshrining abortion access into law. While ultimately unable to challenge Omar, his independent campaign was the most successful in Minnesota by a wide margin, and is indicative of a Twin Cities population that demands progressive politics but does not want to commit to the Democratic Party that Ilhan Omar remains within.

As more and more young people identify as independent, it is no surprise that an independent candidate would find such success amongst a politicized, anti-Trump voter base seeking alternatives to the two parties that disappointed them so deeply during the BLM Movement of 2020 and this year during Operation Metro Surge.

In the districts that stayed Republican, the margins were much less comfortable than in recent elections. In the Sixth District, incumbent Republican Tom Emmer won re-election by only 11 points, whereas in both the 2024 and 2022 elections, he won by 25 points. The district voted for Trump by almost 20 points in 2024. Even in the very strong Republican Seventh District, incumbent Michelle Fischbach kept her seat by 30 points — a huge lead to be sure, but down her previous two elections, where she won by closer to 40 points.

In the Eighth District, representing the Northeast, Republicans have historically held the seat but less comfortably, facing strong competition from Democrats in Duluth and the Boundary Waters region. The Republican incumbent Pete Stauber held his seat, but by just over six points. down from 16 in 2024 and 15 in 2022.

One race, though, is too close to call and will go to a recount: in House District 1, Democrats will very likely pull off a major upset. Incumbent Republican Brad Finstad currently trails by one-tenth of a point; less than 300 votes separate him from Democrat Jake Johnson. This is even more surprising considering Finstad won re-election in 2024 by over 17 points, and in 2022 he won by over 11 points. District 1 was not predicted to flip and no major news outlets were calling it a race to watch in the lead-up to the elections — the seat hasn’t gone to a Democrat since Tim Walz held it early in his political career.

The district favored Trump by 12 points in the 2024 Presidential race, and represents the corn and soybean farmlands of the Southern border. Although the district includes Rochester and Mankato, urban areas that tend to go Democrat, the farmlands truly decide the fate of the district, and this year the farmlands have rejected Republicans more than it has in recent history. Trump’s war with Iran has skyrocketed prices on fuel and fertilizer, and the higher cost of these farming necessities have destroyed farmers’ bottom line across the country.

The war has also exacerbated the broader cost-of-living crisis, which has hit working-class Americans hard everywhere, and rural workers are dissatisfied with Trump’s failure to address their economic needs. Losing the rural working class and farmers has spelled disaster for the Republicans this midterm, and the southernmost district in Minnesota exemplifies this. Although the race has not been certified for Johnson, he has publicly thanked his constituents for the win, and it seems unlikely that even a recount will save the Republican incumbent.

The Democrats defeated the Republicans at the polls in Minnesota, but the Far Right was defeated in Minnesota by the people who organized themselves to fight back this winter. This battle was not fought, and was not won, by any Democratic Party politician, but by the people of the state who took the fight into their own hands.

While the fight against ICE in Minnesota this winter focused on immigrants’ rights, it also organically connected to other struggles. It was commonplace to see Palestine flags at anti-ICE protests, for example, and signs often included anti-war slogans and denunciations of the ultra-rich “Epstein class.” These protests emerged as a response to acute attacks from ICE, but they expressed a broader rejection of the Far Right, and people’s fighting rage came from a deep-seated hatred of the Trump administration and disgust with their warmongering abroad and attacks on immigrants at home.

It was this fighting spirit that led Minnesotans to organize themselves into Rapid Response groups to watch out for ICE and take direct action when ICE vehicles were spotted, and it was this fighting spirit that led Minnesotans to organize enormous mass mobilizations and economic blackouts in sub-zero temperatures to demand that ICE leave their cities. These enormous protests and economic blackouts forced the Trump Administration’s hand — they fired Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino and scaled back ICE presence in the Twin Cities significantly.

While ICE has not completely left the Twin Cities, this retreat from Trump put him in a very weak position and created one of the biggest humiliations of his political career. This victory did not come from Tim Walz or Jacob Frey; it didn’t come from even progressive Democrats like Ilhan Omar or Peggy Flanagan. It was won by the people, organized independently from below, who took matters into their own hands and used their power to shut the cities down not once, but twice.

The Minnesotans who led this fight went to the polls last week looking not only for economic relief or a “return to normal,” but with deeply political demands, including ICE abolition and an end to the genocide in Palestine. The people of Minnesota and across the nation deserve a party that will fight for these demands, which emerged organically from the social movements of the last few years. The Democratic Party is not that party.

Many are cautiously optimistic about the blue wave, hoping that they will be safe from attacks for now. This hope, though, is lukewarm — discontent with the Democratic Party is extremely high, and its victory was due much more to a rejection of Trumpism than faith in the Democrats. This shows us that there is space to build an alternative. We do not have to accept the disappointments of the Democratic Party. We can create a party of our own, by the working class and for the working class, that fights not only for reforms to the capitalist system, but also for an end to the capitalist system altogether.

A party of our own, independent of the capitalists, could help organize our struggles in the streets, uniting and strengthening them. It would also represent, and fight for, the demands of the people, running candidates who answer only to the working class and oppressed who elected them, making no allegiances and no concessions to the capitalists or their politicians. This does not have to be an abstract dream, postponed for some day in the future while we “vote blue no matter who.” The self-organized struggle of the Twin Cities this winter showed that this kind of party is possible.

In this post-midterm season, let’s not forget that the Democrats didn’t defeat ICE, we did, and a blue wave isn’t coming to save us — we have to save ourselves. In Minnesota and across the United States, it’s time for a party of our own. Let’s build a working-class party that fights for socialism.