Some hit, some miss with Trump factor

By Brady Slater bslater@duluthnews.com

For every U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber in 2020, there was a Chuck Novak — one election buoyed by an alliance with President Donald Trump, and the other perhaps cursed by it.

Stauber rode a train of support, and high-profile Trump-ticket events, to easy reelection in November, becoming the first Republican to repeat in the 8th Congressional District in 76 years, since Duluth’s William Pittenger in 1944.

Meanwhile, Novak lost his mayoral reelection bid in Ely against a candidate in Eric Urbas who had dropped out of the race, and has so far said he’ll decline to take the seat.

Prior to the November general election, Novak and five other northern Minnesota mayors famously threw themselves into the national presidential campaign circus.

The mostly Iron Range mayors claimed their towns had been neglected by Democrats, so they were instead endorsing Trump.

Their announcement was arranged by Stauber’s campaign, and deftly coincided with Vice President Mike Pence’s Aug. 28 campaign event in Duluth.

Two of the mayors, Two Harbors’ Chris Swanson and Virginia’s Larry Cuffe, stood with Pence on stage, where Cuffe loudly proclaimed: “Joe Biden did nothing to help the working class!”

In addition to Cuffe, Swanson and Novak, the Iron Range mayors who announced their endorsement of Trump included John Champa, of Chisholm; Robert Vlaisavljevich, of Eveleth; and Andrea Zupancich, of Babbitt.

“There’s many people in northern Minnesota who truly are Republicans,” Swanson said alongside Pence in Duluth. “They truly understand what’s going on.”

Timed with the Pence visit to Duluth, the mayors’ big swing registered with national news outlets.

Some of the mayors took turns appearing on Fox News.

Other media outlets produced stories about how a traditional Democratic hotbed had been lured by Trump.

But all of the Trump campaign’s efforts in northern Minnesota, including two Trump rallies (Duluth and Bemidji), didn’t improve his overall performance in the state.

Yes, Trump won the 8th District in 2020 by a greater percentage and with more votes than he did in 2016 — with nearly 26,000 more votes and a 56% share of the vote.

But he lost Minnesota to Biden by 7 percentage points — losing ground compared to Trump’s better overall performance in 2016.

And in Ely, the mayoral seat remains in flux.

If Mayor-elect Urbas chooses not to take the oath of office at the first meeting of the city council Jan. 5, then the board can appoint an interim mayor in advance of a special election, which would include a possible April primary and an August general election. u