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The two MN marijuana-legalization parties appear to have won enough votes in key districts to deny the DFL the State Senate, thus making marijuana legalization highly unlikely.
Based on the difference between Biden/Trump (no marijuana parties, Biden +230,00) and Smith/Lewis (2 marijuana parties, Smith +166,000, 230,000 marijuana votes) it's clear not all pro-legalization votes went Dem, but more went DFL than GOP, by a lot).
Some observations:
1) It's great that MN has reasonably-good ballot access laws that allow third parties to more easily field candidates, but without some kind of runoff system, and with the GOP openly recruiting and supporting candidates for the marijuana parties...
1) It's great that MN has reasonably-good ballot access laws that allow third parties to more easily field candidates, but without some kind of runoff system, and with the GOP openly recruiting and supporting candidates for the marijuana parties...
... this will not be helpful to the party that more fully supports reasonable ballot access.
2) There's an easily-imaginable alternative world where this strategy worked - the DFL wins the State Senate, but the marijuana parties get enough votes to scare the DFL into...
2) There's an easily-imaginable alternative world where this strategy worked - the DFL wins the State Senate, but the marijuana parties get enough votes to scare the DFL into...
...legalizing. That surely was the plan. It's a very high-risk strategy, though, and they could have made that point by running just in very blue areas. The 9.5% for the candidate in CD5, for example, didn't really threaten Ilhan, but it sure sent a message.
3) The trick for the DFL the next two years will be figuring out how to handle this challenge without surrendering on the principle that it should be reasonably easy for third parties to field candidates.
4) Looking more closely at the results, while my basic point holds, it appears they only cost one DFL candidate their State Senate race - Aric Putnam in SD14. The GOP will hold a 2-seat advantage, so they don't appear to have tipped the Senate on their own.
5) It sure does look like Dan Feehan in the 1st Congressional District lost because of the marijuana parties.
Some of the replies in this thread are variants on the "if the Dems don't support my key issue, why should I support them, so it's their fault this happened," argument. I'd say the MN situation is an argument against that idea.
First, the DFL party platform explicitly...
First, the DFL party platform explicitly...
...endorsed both legalization and expungement. That of course does not guarantee it would have been enacted, but it's not like the platform has no meaning whatsoever.
So, if your goal is legalization, and one party supports it and another opposes it, but you don't have...
So, if your goal is legalization, and one party supports it and another opposes it, but you don't have...
...faith that the support is genuine, it is reasonable to want to pressure them. However, that pressure will only be meaningful if the party has the power to enact the change you want. When your pressure robs them of that power, your pressure campaign has backfired.
I can imagine a response being something like, "well, hopefully they learned their lesson." To that remark I'd ask this: what meaningful steps would you like the DFL to take in the next two years that would show you they learned their lesson? Put it in the platform? Already done.
Introduce bills? Already done.
And don't say, "they need to campaign aggressively on it in 2022," because by that time, there's already a third-party challenger or there's not, so that's too late in the game.
The right lesson, I think, is that...
And don't say, "they need to campaign aggressively on it in 2022," because by that time, there's already a third-party challenger or there's not, so that's too late in the game.
The right lesson, I think, is that...
...enacting big change is, and always will be, a heavy lift that usually will require more than one bite at the apple, even if everyone is theoretically on your side.
If a fraction of the energy the two minor-party pro-legalization parties put into the election was instead...
If a fraction of the energy the two minor-party pro-legalization parties put into the election was instead...
...devoted to aggressively campaigning for a big DFL majority that would then have the margins to enact legalization while letting vulnerable incumbents vote against it, we would absolutely be in a better position today. Now, here's the challenging thing:
The scenario I describe would NOT guarantee your desired outcome. You could play the game as well as possible and still not get your prize.
That WILL ALWAYS be the case. You build, you fight, you take the wins you can. And you keep building and fighting. It never ends.
That WILL ALWAYS be the case. You build, you fight, you take the wins you can. And you keep building and fighting. It never ends.
