Donald Trump thinks he could be the first Republican to win Minnesota since 1972

(Image credit: Jeff Kowalsky/Getty Images)

published 20 August 2016

Speaking at a private fundraiser in Minneapolis Friday night, Donald Trump suggested he might be able to turn Minnesota red for the first time in more than four decades.

"If I could win a state like Minnesota, the path is a whole different thing," Trump explained. "It becomes a much, much different race. We’re going to give it our greatest shot." Trump assured the crowd of supporters he has "so many friends" in Minnesota and plans to visit "a lot." Though he did not make a public appearance, Trump's event was met by dozens of protesters who braved heavy rain to express their displeasure.

The last time the Midwestern state went for a Republican presidential candidate was in 1972, when every state excepted Massachusetts supported Richard Nixon. Minnesota has only gone red three times in the last 84 years, even bucking the rest of the country to support Minnesotan Walter Mondale over Ronald Reagan in 1984. Polls of the state for this race have seen Democrat Hillary Clinton consistently in the lead.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.