St. Paul, Minnesota --
For decade after decade, Minnesota has been a state Democrats could count on. Since 1932, the Gopher State defected to the GOP only three times -- in the 1952 and 1956 Eisenhower landslides, and in Richard Nixon's crushing 1972 victory over George McGovern.
In recent elections, however, the results have gotten much closer. In 2000, Al Gore beat George W. Bush here by a slim 48-46 margin. Four years ago, John Kerry won 51-48 -- a difference of less than 100,000 votes out of 2.79 million cast.
For Republicans, Minnesota suddenly took on the characteristics of a target swing state. Democratic support, especially in rural and exurban areas, was trending downward. In the aftermath of the 2004 election, Minnesota and neighboring Wisconsin -- where Kerry won by just 11,000 votes out of nearly 3 million cast -- looked like traditionally Democratic states that could be flipped.
For the GOP, adding new states to the leaning-Republican column is crucial because of the growing likelihood that the Republican lock on the Rocky Mountain states, running from Montana to New Mexico, will begin to break. Obama holds a 4.3 point lead in New Mexico, is a statistically insignificant 1 point behind McCain in Nevada, and the two are tied in Colorado.
The prospect of lost electoral college votes in the West intensifies the pressure on the Republican Party to make gains elsewhere. Which is one, if not the, reason the Republican Party convention is being held in St. Paul.
The GOP's huge investment in this state does not look as if it is going to pay off with a shift from Blue to Red, however, either here or in Wisconsin. The following chart from pollster.com shows Obama catching up to McCain in Minnesota at the start of 2008 and holding a 4.5 point lead, a larger margin than that by which either Gore or Kerry won the state.
Wisconsin is more striking. There, what had been close race -- with Obama running about 2 points ahead of McCain through June -- has broken open, with Obama holding an average of a 10 point lead in recent surveys.
A poll conducted August 7-17 by Lawrence R. Jacobs, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for the Study of Politics and Governance, and Joanne M. Miller, Research Associate at the center, found that Obama holds a solid 48-38 lead over McCain, and that Democratic Party identification in Minnesota is far ahead of Republican identification, 50-36.
Ironically, at a time of intense controversy over McCain's selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, the survey found that if McCain had picked Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, it would have added 13 points to his level of support, enough to put him over the top and gain this state's 10 electoral college votes.
A warning signal to Democrats, on the other hand, was the Jacobs-Miller finding "that Iraq has been neutralized and no longer works to the advantage of Democrats. Both candidates are trusted equally to handle it."
The failure of Wisconsin and Minnesota to move toward the GOP reflects the long-range problem facing a Republican Party that once counted on a solid base of electoral college votes from the South and Mountain West. With fissures growing in the West, with Florida always a potential defector from Republican ranks, and with Virginia moving toward the Democrats, the GOP no longer enjoys an assured electoral college advantage going into presidential elections.
And even as the Democratic Party is showing new strength in the increasingly populous states of the West, the surging growth of the Hispanic electorate in Texas will, according to a number of Republicans, put that bastion of the conservative coalition in jeopardy 8 or 12 years from now.
All of these trends put the Democratic Party on an ascendant path the first time in over half a century -- barring, of course, major developments intervening to change the political environment.