After just two years at the helm of the Minnesota Legislature, Republicans lost control of both the House and Senate on Tuesday night—a defeat at least some Democrats are attributing in part to the marriage and Voter ID amendments.
Going into Election Day, Republicans controlled the House 72-61 and the Senate 37-30. While votes in some districts were still being counted early Wednesday, Republicans conceded that they lost both majorities in the early morning hours, according to Twin Cities media reports. The DFL needed to pick up just four seats in the Senate and six seats in the House.
"[Voters] spoke, and they spoke loudly. It was clear they wanted to see a different direction," ousted Eagan Sen. Ted Daley (R) said in an interview with Patch on Wednesday morning. "It wasn’t just a loss for Ted Daley here in Eagan … it was a wave election."
Daley was among the handful of sitting Republican senators and representatives defeated by Democratic challengers across the state. His district, which includes nearly all of Eagan and portions of Burnsville, was identified as a key swing race for control of the legislature.
Democrats swept all three closely-watched House and Senate races in Eagan, but ).
In Senate District 57, a GOP-held seat representing portions of Apple Valley and Rosemount, newcomer Greg Clausen (DFL) took roughly 54 percent of the vote.
Democrats also knocked out Republican incumbents in Brooklyn Park, Blaine and Spring Lake Park.
The weight of a presidential election, the thorny issues presented by the marriage and Voter ID amendments and a state shutdown earlier this summer may have all been contributing factors in the "blue wave" that swept the state, according to newly-elected legislators Jim Carlson and Sandra Masin.
In an interview with the Star Tribune, Lakeville Sen. Dave Thompson (R) characterized it as a "rough night" for the GOP.
Daley said he was also dismayed by the Republican turnover statewide. He added that the political instability of a legislature swinging widely each election is tough on Minnesota business owners, who need some modicum of political consistency.
Daley encouraged the Democrats to keep the focus on jobs and private sector economic growth during the next legislative session.
"We have to come up with ways to provide certainty for business owners so when they’re looking at the long-term plan, they're not getting whip-sawed every two years," Daley said. “That’s really tough on not just business owners and job creators, but on nonprofit organizations, our churches. All of our communities are lurching back and forth, because our policies are going back and forth."
Then when the national election was between Obama and Romney, the mention of his religion was rarely ever heard about again. What you mainly saw from Republicans were these same portrayals of Obama as some sort of "other." Actually, not even a singular "other," but objectifying him as some other religion, some other nationality, some other completely different political philosophy, etc. This is the strongest tool that the Republican party has to fight their political races and to divide the country by compartmentalizing people into these groups with varying and conflicting (and mostly fictitious) agendas. For anybody who was spewing such vile rhetoric on sites like Patch, at family picnics or at the local pub, no matter the greater good that you perceived and used to justify it in your head, I think that today is a day for looking in the mirror as the whole Republican party ought to be doing right now. Yesterday, this great nation overwhelmingly rejected that way of thinking.
Axelrod and the Chicago gang ran one of the sleaziest campaigns ever defining Romney as something he was not. What is the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Sadly, we will get more of the same from a president who was in over his head from day one. The Obamabots swallowed their lies, hook, line and sinker.
And to the writer Watts above, I am a white Republican. I would rather have ten black Rebublican families live around me then ten white Democrat families. How is that as some sort of "other." And most Republicans think like me. I don't care about skin color. I care that someone wants to pick my pocket and change our society to a communist one. Go to N. Korea or Cuba and leave us hard working ,for each penny, Americans alone! Obama is a socialist Santa Claus and that is why you voted for him. Or maybe it was JUST because he is black. Now who is prejudice person? Shoe is on the other foot.
I don't care WHO my neighbor is, as long as they are respectful. You sound like a fantastic person to live next to.
Isn't that what the republicans just did in Mitt's campaign? I'm suprised we didn't hear about Karl Rove recovering in the hopspital from a heart attack because they were so sure of themselves.