I feel like Hillary lost Obama again last night, definitely NOT the same conditions but the general feel of the results. And like that time, MAK will be responsible for uniting the party behind Dayton. On Dayton’s part, he will have to do some serious work in the cities to convince voters to even come out. His focus on the iron range clearly paid off, but he lost the cities by about the same margin as he won areas in Northern Minnesota.
So, what does Dayton need to do to get MAK supporters behind him?
The tax the rich sentiment has always been popular, but he needs to clearly define his plan (and make it a realistic one since the GOP is already all over this one).
The major issue hanging around his neck seems to be that people are still really pissed at him for not running for reelection when he was a US senator. Convincing people that he’s sincere about this and won’t just run for the hills when things don’t go his way will be a challenge. Minnesotans have extremely long memories.
His personal funding of his campaign is going to hurt him more in the general than it did in the primary. (Though for me, this was a MAJOR factor in the primary). The GOP is already pitching the ‘regular Joe’ against the millionaire DFLers.
I do hope he will firmly come out for repealing the 24-hour wait for an abortion. Though his campaign manager assured me he is for this, I can’t find a single place where he actually says he will do anything about it.
One big question that will be buzzing around is how will Dayton keep those voters from flipping over to Horner? Though if the pollster’s error in prediction holds, he won’t have to worry about losing votes in the middle, but getting the base to come out at all.
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