REGIONAL— The North Country voted against the grain of the national mood on Tuesday, as Democrat Kamala Harris won in St. Louis, Lake, and Cook counties, by nearly identical margins to four years ago. That ran contrary to the trend elsewhere in the country, where former president Donald Trump generally improved on his margins this time, versus his 2020 run against Joe Biden.
In St. Louis County, Harris was helped by big margins in Duluth, which lifted her to a 56-42 percent win in the county, which was virtually identical to the 56-41 percent margin in 2020. Harris lost most precincts in the northern part of the county, including the heart of the Iron Range, although margins were closer on the Range than points north.
The Ely area was an exception to that trend, as Harris won in Ely proper, along with Fall Lake, Morse, and Eagles Nest townships.
Both Lake and Cook counties favored Harris, again by identical margins to four years ago. Cook County favored Harris 66-31 percent, while Lake County proved much closer at 51-47 percent.
Meanwhile, Trump showed a slight improvement in Koochiching County this year, topping Harris by a 62-36 percent margin, better than his 60-38 percent margin four years ago.
Statewide, Harris edged Trump by a relatively narrow 51-47 percent margin, three points short of Biden’s seven percentage point win in 2020. Nonetheless, Harris’s statewide victory extended Minnesota’s streak of backing Democrats for the White House to 52 years. The last time Minnesota voted Republican was in 1972, when the state narrowly went for President Richard Nixon over South Dakota Sen. George McGovern.
While Minnesota had plenty of company in the Democratic column in the upper Midwest in 2020, as Wisconsin and Michigan backed Biden, Illinois was the only other midwestern state to go blue this time around.
The ramifications of the election could be significant for the region. In his one visit to Minnesota this year, Trump promised to immediately end a temporary mineral withdrawal in a portion of the Superior National Forest. Legislation introduced earlier this year by Eighth District Rep. Pete Stauber, dubbed the Superior National Forest Restoration Act, would speed the path for foreign mining companies to develop copper-nickel deposits within the upper Rainy River watershed, which drains in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Should the GOP hold its control over the U.S. House, as appears likely, it increases the chances that Stauber’s measure could be signed into law.
The area could also feel the uncertain effects of high tariffs that Trump has promised to impose on U.S. importers of foreign-made products. While the tariffs could benefit the steel industry, most economists have warned that the levies will boost the prices of most everyday goods and could actually harm steel-using manufacturing industries in the U.S., as was the case during Trump’s first term.