November 8, 2004
How well did the DFL do?
Just how well did the DFL do last week?
On the one hand, their gains were concentrated in places where local issues appeared to predominate.
On the other, their share of the two party state legislative vote (0.522) ran slightly ahead of Kerry's two party share of the presidential vote (0.518).
Minnesota's state house seats are redistricted by a neutral body, which makes it quite unusual that in 2002 the DFL's 0.493 share of the statewide state house vote netted them just 52 seats out of 134 (39%).
This year the DFL captured 0.522 of the statewide state house vote, but fell short of a majority of seats. They imrpoved their share of the vote in 97 of 134 districts; and in 94 of the 125 seats contested by both parties in both years. (Obviously if a party doesn't contest a seat in one election year this can't help but radically change the two-party share of the vote).
As you can see from the following graph the DFL improved their vote share in most seats held by the Republicans in 2002. The real missed opportunity for the DFL lies in five districts (25B, 14A, 19B, 24B, 56A) where they needed to raise their vote by less than 2%, but went backwards.
On the other hand in their own districts (see below), the DFL managed to raise their vote share in 37 out of 52 districts, and only lost more than a couple of percentage points in 2 districts that were close.
A landslide election would have seen the DFL vote share rise in nearly every seat, and they fell somewhat short of that mark. But increasing your vote overall by nearly 3%, and increasing your share of the vote in 75% of contested districts is a solid vote of confidence.
