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Former President Donald Trump campaigns alongside his running mate, JD Vance, today in Minnesota. It is the first time the two have campaigned together since President Joe Biden announced he was leaving the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him. Here's Minnesota Public Radio's Clay Masters on why a traditionally blue straight - state may be so competitive this year.
CLAY MASTERS, BYLINE: The Democratic mayor of Cincinnati, Aftab Pureval, says he doesn't think Ohio is winnable for Kamala Harris. But speaking on a Saint Paul rooftop alongside the mayors of the Twin Cities, Pureval says Harris has to win Minnesota in November.
AFTAB PUREVAL: You have to push her across the finish line. You have to have our aunties' back. Because, look, there are people who say the country is too racist and too sexist to elect someone like Vice President Harris, and that is crap.
MASTERS: Pureval spoke at an event to drum up support from Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander organizers. Saint Paul city council member Hwa Jeong Kim was in the crowd.
HWA JEONG KIM: There are other states in the Midwest and other states across the country that are really relying on Minnesotans to pull our weight and knock on the doors and make sure that we carry the state for our next president, President Harris.
MASTERS: Donald Trump has a keen interest in picking up this state that has gone for the Democratic presidential nominee in every election for the last half century. He came really close to winning Minnesota in 2016. Polls between Biden and Trump remained close here, and Minnesota's highest-ranking Republican, Congressman Tom Emmer doesn't think the odds have changed.
TOM EMMER: I think Donald Trump has a great chance of winning Minnesota in November 'cause people recognize the choice is pretty easy.
MASTERS: But Democrats don't seem too worried about holding onto this reliably blue state. Minnesota's Democratic governor, Tim Walz, is on Harris' short list of potential running mates. Here he is on NBC's "Morning Joe," trying out some jabs at Trump's running mate.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "MORNING JOE")
TIM WALZ: That angst that JD Vance talks about in "Hillbilly Elegy," none of my hillbilly cousins went to Yale, and none of them went on to be a venture capitalist or whatever. It's not who people really are.
MASTERS: The state Democratic Party says it saw a big boost in fundraising in the two days following Harris' announcement. But the Trump campaign has been beefing up its operations in this state, where the former president came just over one percentage point from winning eight years ago.
For NPR News, I'm Clay Masters in Saint Paul. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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