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Election 2024
The Associated Press and MPR News Staff
Updated:

RNC co-chair: Trump campaign now considers Minnesota a battleground state

Woman stands in front of a Make America Great sign
Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump attends the first day of the Republican National Convention on Monday in Milwaukee, Wis.
Getty Images

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Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump told delegates at the party’s national convention Tuesday that the Trump campaign now considers Minnesota a battleground state.

Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law of former President Donald Trump, was making her first public appearance at the Republican National Convention speaking to the Pennsylvania delegation — a nod to the assassination attempt against the former president on Saturday and Pennsylvania’s pivotal place on the battleground map.

Lara Trump told more than 200 Pennsylvania delegates and guests Tuesday morning in a hotel ballroom in Waukesha, west of Milwaukee, that the map of battleground states was expanding beyond the half dozen or so states that have been the Trump campaign’s focus so far.

She said Minnesota and Virginia had been added to their battleground plans. Trump lost the two states in 2020, though they were competitive in 2016.

“Get ready to see a lot of red on that map,” she said. “We have to make it too big to rig.”

Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chair Ken Martin told MPR News that he agrees Minnesota is a battleground state — but he doesn’t think Trump’s campaign has put in the work to flip it.

“Minnesota still hasn’t seen Donald Trump and his campaign in any significant way,” Martin said, pointing to organizing work that DFL officials have done in the leadup to the election.

“We have a really huge head start. The ramp for these guys to actually stand up an organization and then start having the number of conversations that we’ve already had with voters is growing smaller and smaller by the day. So you know, while they talk a big game, it doesn’t seem that they're actually serious about trying to put Minnesota into play at this point,” Martin said.

No Republican presidential candidate has won Minnesota since 1972.

In a flip from Donald Trump’s past two campaigns, Lara Trump also encouraged the Pennsylvania delegation to vote early — a contrast from the former president’s long-held, public doubts about early and absentee voting.

“We’re taking nothing for granted,” she said, suggesting that banking early votes will help the campaign spend the final stage of the campaign focusing on late deciders.

“This is incredible to be here right now and I think we all know why. We may have been looking at a very different situation, but for the grace of God,” Lara Trump told the Pennsylvania delegates, referring to Saturday’s assassination attempt. “God bless Donald J. Trump.”

“Here we are. The show goes on,” she said.

Correction (July 16, 2024): A previous version of this story incorrectly reported the Minnesota and Virginia presidential election results from 2020. The story has been updated.