Polls, pundits, and prognosticators...

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"We have two months people. It is up to us to get out the vote. No matter what it takes. Phone calls, door knocking, lit dropping, advocating, whatever - we ALL must do it. In 2018, the stakes have never been higher."

In the year 2010, one of our state's best Republican politicians, Tom Emmer, ran for Governor against a very weak DFL candidate, Mark Dayton. Emmer lost by a whisker. Actually, some feel if the voter fraud had been rung out of the voting process, Emmer would have won. Emmer received a bit over 910,000 votes. Truthfully, if many of the Republicans who stayed home had come out and voted, and if the "rogue Republican", Tom Horner, had not run as a third party candidate and taken over 200,000 votes from Emmer, Emmer would have smoked Dayton like a cheap cigar. Emmer would probably now be running for his third term.

But Emmer lost, and went on to be the Congressman from the 6th District. In 2014, Jeff Johnson decided to take on Dayton. Johnson ended up with 879,000 votes, and lost to Dayton by about 6%. According to the experts, it was mostly a "name recognition" issue, mostly out state. In the metro suburbs, Johnson did quite well. Again, according to experts, Johnson was narrowing the gap out state in the final weeks. Some feel if the race had gone on for another two weeks, it would have been a statistical tie, or and edge to Johnson. 

What are the similarities between 2010 and 2014? In both years, hundreds of thousands of voters stayed home. I am talking about Red Team voters. If 1,000,000 Red Team voters (and that is far from all of them) had shown up in 2014, Jeff Johnson would be working on his re-election bid this year.

Why do I go through all these numbers, this "ancient" history? Because it matters. Even though my wife HATES it when I quote numbers, in this business, numbers matter. I don't give too poops and a holler what the pundits or prognosticators say, if we get more Red Team people to show up in 2018, we will win. Not only win, but win big! 

However - I am not a Pollyanna. The Blue Team is not going to roll over and play dead. They are fired up this year. Many believe in the "Blue Wave". Whereas in 2010 and 2014 they did not garner over 1,000,000 votes for Governor, this year I think they will. If we come in under 1,000,000 again, we will lose. We will have Governor Walz, and the state will be lost to debt, high taxes, insolvency, and malaise. 

Bottom line? To get a "coat tails" type of victory in 2018, we need something much bigger than a "Blue Wave". We need 1,300,000 Red Team members to get out and VOTE! The table is set, the right team is in place, we just need to VOTE. If 1.3M folks get out to vote in November, in January 2019, this state will look like never before. 

Why do so many pundits and prognosticators feel comfortable in saying Walz just might win? Very simple and very elementary - they know how Republicans have voted in the past. And - if we continue with our past habits, the pundits will be right. We will lose. Here is the biggest crime. Just like in the past eight years, with superior candidates, we will lose. However, with 1.3M voting, we will get a better Minnesota. A brighter future. And, hope.

We have two months left people. It is up to us to get out the vote. No matter what it takes. Phone calls, door knocking, lit dropping, advocating, whatever - we ALL must do it. In 2018, the stakes have never been higher. Don't believe that? Watch the MPR debate which happened at the fair on You Tube. You will see what the future under Governor Walz will look like. And it ain't pretty.