Summary

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s running mate, suffered a personal setback in the 2024 election as he lost his home county, Blue Earth, to President-elect Donald Trump.

Trump won 49.6% of the vote there, while Harris received 48.3%, marking a symbolic defeat for Walz, who built his political career in the area.

Walz, a former teacher and congressman known for his moderate stance, had previously turned a Republican seat Democratic and won Minnesota’s governorship by a large margin in 2018.

His campaign faced challenges, including scrutiny over past statements about military service, which the Trump campaign leveraged as a “Stolen Valor” issue.

  • MagicShel
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    2 months ago

    So, I hear you, but who do you think would’ve outperformed Harris? And don’t say someone more progressive, because the battleground states would just be that much redder.

      • MagicShel
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        2 months ago

        Yes. Yes, exactly. Redder than what we just saw. Because all those rural motherfuckers looked at Harris, probably the most progressive candidate we’ve had during my lifetime and I’m getting fucking old, looked at Trump, and they fucking chose Trump.

        They. Fucking. Chose. Trump.

        I don’t know what those stupid motherfuckers want, but it’s obviously not healthcare or a god damned economy.

        • xtr0n@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          My understanding is that Trump did not outperform his 2020 returns and Harris did not outperform Biden’s 2020 returns. We didn’t get more Trump voters than pat elections, we just got fewer Democratic voters. Why was Democratic turnout so bad? Was it really because Harris was too liberal? I haven’t seen any evidence of that. I suspect that it’s because Harris isn’t very charismatic (compared to candidates like Obama or Bill Clinton). I also suspect that turnout was low because Harris was talking more about maintaining the status quo instead of talking about change. If she was more liberal then maybe more of the base would be motivated to turn out? IDK but I’m sure there will be a million think pieces on the topic 😔

        • Fosheze@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          The rural republican voters were never going to vote for Harris. Her only chance was to motivate the progressives to go out and vote but instead she spit on them at every opporitunity and sprinted to the right to try and court votes she was never going to get anyways.

          Just look at the votes. Trumps vote total barely changed. Harris lost more than 10 million votes for the DNC. That says nobody switched from trump to Harris but a lot of people were so disgusted with Harris that they didn’t even bother to show up.

          • MagicShel
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            2 months ago

            a lot of people were so disgusted with Harris that they didn’t even bother to show up.

            Why??? Gaza? One fucking issue out of fifty that Trump will be ten times worse on anyway? I’m not thrilled about Gaza, but now in their name, even more Gaza’s will die, plus Ukrainians, our own women, trans kids, immune compromised, whomever dies as a result of NATO collapsing, whoever dies because of climate change, refugees.

            And every single person who voted for Trump over the economy, I fucking guarantee if Gaza was on fire from one end to the other they wouldn’t piss on it to put it out.

            My wife swears up and down that rural and rural-adjacent suburban votes will simply never vote for a woman.

            My son, who lives and works in Detroit, says the Muslims would rather ban abortion than pet much any other issue. The news says trump made major inroads with gen z boys.

            I don’t know the answer. I’m not sure anyone does. But on every single fucking issue, whatever you care about, there isn’t one single issue on which Trump would be the better pick, unless you just want to fucking burn it all down. Or you’re a multi multi millionaire who just wants to pay less taxes.

            I have to go get started on tomorrow’s hangover.

        • toomanypancakes@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          They want the demographics they dislike to suffer. That’s it, they don’t give a shit about policy.

          • MagicShel
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            2 months ago

            I know for lots of them that’s probably true. But it’s not fifty percent of the country.