The Founding Fathers were very smart men. They knew enough to institute the Electoral College so that a small amount of highly populated areas would not decide the outcomes of elections for the majority of smaller populated areas. Of course, the Electoral College only applies to Presidential elections. But, if there were an electoral college for the Attorney General race in Minnesota based on Congressional Districts, Doug Wardlow have won.
Wardlow was victorious in five of Minnesota’s eight Congressional Districts: 1, 2, 6, 7 and 8. (Compared to the 2014 election, where former Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson was victorious in all but one Congressional District, CD6.) Wardlow was also victorious in 73 of the state’s 87 counties, according to the The New York Times.
So, by a mere 98,948 votes, Keith Ellison became the Attorney General of Minnesota by winning huge victories in Congressional Districts 5 and 4 and eeking out a narrower victory in the formerly Republican district of CD3 by 16,032 votes.
But what we are not hearing is that out of Minnesota’s 3,315,627 registered voters in the 2018 election, there were 763,855 registered voters who DID NOT cast a vote for the Attorney General race.
There are a number of ways to look at Ellison’s victory. The most popular narrative is that Congressional District 5 (CD5), Ellison’s home congressional district, put him over the top with 74.16% of the votes for AG. In plain numbers, in CD5 alone, Ellison received 254,800 votes to Republican challenger Doug Wardlow’s 68,542 or 19.95% of the vote. Wardlow lost to Ellison in this one congressional district alone by 186,258 votes.
It should be noted that in 2014, Lori Swanson received 159,884 votes in CD5. In 2018, Keith Ellison received 254,800 votes, despite allegations of domestic and verbal abuse against him by his former girlfriend, Karen Monahan. This was a whopping 94,916 votes more than Lori Swanson received in 2014. Compared to the republican race, in 2014, Republican AG candidate Scott Newman received 46,068 votes while in 2018, Doug Wardlow delivered 68,542 votes in CD5. Wardlow received +22,474 votes more than Newman did four years earlier in this congressional district. However, in total registered voters in this congressional district, there were 426,882 registered voters in 2018 in CD5 while in 2014, there were 394,866 registered voters, which is a difference of only +32,016 registered voters. In 2014, the race for Minnesota Attorney General was a crowded one with six candidates: Independent candidate Brandan Borgos, Green Party candidate Andy Dawkins, Libertarian Mary O’Connor and Legalize Marijuana Now candidate Dan R. Vacek, along with Republican Scott Newman and the winner, Democrat Swanson. In 2018, it was only Ellison, Wardlow and “Grassroots Legalize Cannibis” candidate Noah Johnson.
Johnson received 145,748 votes statewide. Again, note that Wardlow lost the AG race by only 98,948 votes, however, I highly doubt (no pun intended) that the Legalize Cannibis crowd would vote for a Republican candidate.
But looking at the staggering number of people who just decided to sit out the Attorney General race in Minnesota in 2018 is mind-numbing.
Thanks to voter ignorance, laziness, or whatever excuse, Minnesota now has an Attorney General who supports Antifa, defends cop killers, has supported segregation of African-Americans and has called the United States Constitution a “white racist conspiracy” – on top of being accused by two different women of domestic abuse. Monahan, to this day, is still tweeting about Ellison, calling him a liar and a cheater. Nice qualifications to have when serving in public office.
And because 763,855 registered voters DID NOT cast a vote for the Attorney General race has made those of us in Minnesota, who knew how important it was, pay a very steep price.