In the past, Bluestem has chastized a conservative blogger for not knowing the boundaries of Minnesota's First Congressional District, so it's only fair that we point out that Eric Pusey's understanding of the geography of the Sixth Congressional District goes a bit far a field.
In Why we should fear Tom Emmer, Eric Pusey includes Big Stone County, part of the fabled "Bump" on the South Dakota border, in with Sixth CD precincts in Anoka, Hennepin, Sherburne, Washington and Wright County.
Missing? Benton County and Stearns County, both home to St. Cloud.
Big Stone County apparently knew enough to fear Tom Emmer before MPP's warning, since Governor Dayton captured 45.41 percent of the vote to Emmer's 41.49 percent in 2010. Tom Horner captured 12 percent, with the Grassroots Party inhaling 10 votes for .49 percent.
Someone had to keep passing those stale Big Stoned County jokes around.
Benton County, on the other hand, gave Emmer a clear majority of 50.92 percent to Dayton's 35.29 percent and Horner's 12.14 percent. The Grassroots Party candidates came in fourth, putting the bent in Benton County with 77 votes or 0.56 percent of the vote.
However, while Big Stone County voters--actually in the Minnesota's Seventh, with only the NRCC's traveling billboard of doom to fear--need not fret about voting for Emmer, whatever a metro progressive blogger tells them, replacing Benton's 2010 Emmer votes makes his bid all the more scary for the those dreading the notion of Tom Emmer in Congress.
Fewer than 3600 registered voters lived in Big Stone County in 2010, a lovely, rural prairie and riparian county on the state's western boundary waters, while 20,987 souls were registered in Benton County (part of St. Cloud is in Benton). Add in the Stearns County precincts in the Sixth, and the increased number--and percentage--of Emmer votes will change the percentage by which Emmer won the 2010 gubernatorial race in CD6.
Bluestem recommends that Minnesotans visit the Upper Minnesota River Valley, which not only is quite lovely, but unlike those folks downstream in Carver County, has little to fear from Tom Emmer. For now, Big Stone County can breathe easier.
Image: In an act of radical redistricting, Minnesota Progressive Project put Big Stone County in the middle of Minnesota's Sixth Congressional District. In fact, it's part of The Bump on the state's western border with South Dakota, in CD7. Bluestem hopes that MPP replaces BSC with Benton. Just saying.
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