Minnesota Republicans wrap convention sensing wind behind Trump as Democrats struggle

The Republican National Convention draws to a close Thursday night with a capstone speech from former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee who hopes to expand the party’s reach to Minnesota and other places long reliable for Democrats..

Days after Trump survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, he entered the four-day event in Milwaukee to a hero’s welcome. Adding to the momentum were a series of Trump wins from the courts and a growing sense of unity among Republicans — including former GOP opponents — now backing his candidacy.

All week, GOP officials and delegates lodged a full-throated attack on Democrats on issues ranging from the economy to public safety to border security. Democrats who traveled to Wisconsin to lodge their rebuttal, meanwhile, called Republican policies too extreme.

Several GOP delegates said that Americans are fed up with the status quo and are looking for change. Delegate Natalie Barnes of Prior Lake said Americans want politicians who will take care of what she calls, “regular people.”

“All Americans are suffering right now with the amount of money that it takes to fill your gas tank, feed your children and literally survive,” Barnes said.

Wisconsin delegate Jordan Brickey, 22, works a retail job in La Crosse, across the Mississippi River from southern Minnesota. He said the stereotype that Republicans are the party of the wealthy no longer holds up. Instead, he said the party includes “real working men and women for all races, all economic levels, for all Americans.”

“We’re wanting to make America great again for everybody,” Brickey underscored.

In recent years, neighboring Wisconsin has been battleground turf in presidential races. There are ample signs Minnesota will be a battleground too this fall.

Trump’s pollster and other key advisers spent the week in Milwaukee conveying their case that they can flip Minnesota, which hasn’t gone for a Republican since President Richard Nixon in his 1972 landslide.

This week, Republicans heard from speakers aimed at attracting support from younger voters and others who could help persuade voters in union households. Former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley took the stage to issue a clear endorsement. Haley said Trump might not be the perfect candidate but he’s better than Democratic President Joe Biden.

“You don’t have to agree with Donald Trump 100 percent of the time to vote for him,” Haley said. “Take it from me. I haven’t always agreed with President Trump.”

U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer, the House majority whip and representative of Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, echoed comments about the state’s potential to be a political battleground. Emmer said Republicans should be able to expand their reach by pulling in voters worried about a Democratic Party moving too hard to the left.

“Republicans have become the party of the working man or woman in this country, which is kind of amazing to say because it wasn’t that long ago where people would have said something completely different,” Emmer said.

Minnesota delegates say as the convention closes out they’re buoyed by the growing enthusiasm for the former president. But they also know they can’t let their foot off the gas.

Minnesota Republican Party Chair David Hann says the GOP succeeded this week in showing a unified front and reinforcing the stark choice this November.

“I expected this would be a strong unifying convention, I expected that we would have a positive message and one that would just really be a sharp contrast to what we see the Democrats talking about,” Hann told MPR News. “And I think that has happened and I think it’s been very positive for our voters and positive for Republicans.”

But Democrats accuse Republicans of misrepresenting their positions.

For example, on immigration they underscore that Trump derailed a bipartisan border plan that had been moving through Congress. They say Republican policies would reduce access to health care services and that GOP isolationist approaches to foreign policy would harm the country.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was in Milwaukee on Wednesday to rebut claims made during the convention and to push back on “Project 2025,” a conservative framework of policy priorities that could move forward if Trump wins.

Walz compared Trump’s running mate JD Vance to a “Frankenstein monster” built by a right-wing conservative think tank known as the Heritage Foundation. Walz added that he thinks Vance “was crafted in the image of the most extreme elements of the Republican Party.”

But Walz’s Democratic Party is hardly unified.

A growing number of Democrats want Biden to drop out. They’re worried Biden will lose and pull other Democratic candidates down with him.

Biden has said he’s not leaving the race, but that replacement talk could last right up until the Democratic convention in mid-August.

On Wednesday, Biden left the campaign trail in Nevada after testing positive for COVID-19. While he might only be sidetracked temporarily, it’s likely to feed into Democratic concerns that he’s not up to the rigors of a campaign against Trump.

In a speech Wednesday night, Vance swiped at Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

“From open borders to stagnating wages, the people who have governed this country have failed and failed again,” Vance told the party activists. “President Trump represents the last best hope to restore what, if lost, may never be found again.”

MPR News politics reporter Dana Ferguson contributed to this story.

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