Before anyone gets excited, I should say that my answer to that question is No. However, there are some intriguing signs of life for Donald Trump.
As I noted yesterday, both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have begun running television advertising in Minnesota, so presumably their own polling shows the race as reasonably close. An interesting data point came this morning from the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office: over 77,000 students from 280 high schools across the state cast mock ballots in the presidential election. And guess what? Donald Trump won, by 35% to 33%, with third party candidates and write-ins drawing quite a few votes.
The accompanying spread sheet shows data by school. If you assume that high school kids tend to vote the way they hear their parents talking at home, the results are fascinating. Trump absolutely slaughters Clinton in Greater Minnesota–not just the northern part of the state, but generally outside the Twin Cities metro area. To cite just one of many examples, Trump carried New Prague High School, in southern Minnesota, over Clinton by 374-151.
On the other hand, Clinton clobbers Trump in the public schools in Minneapolis and St. Paul, e.g. Southwest High School in Minneapolis, where Clinton squashed Trump 1,203 to 36. Along with the public schools, elite private schools voted overwhelmingly for Clinton, while non-elite private religious schools went even more overwhelmingly for Trump. Clinton dominates the inner tier suburbs, while the outer suburbs are variable, but trending toward Trump, while the exurbs went for Trump (e.g., Forest Lake HS, 426-200).
None of this is a surprise, except for the fact that when you net out the candidates’ expected strengths and weaknesses, Trump comes out slightly ahead–at least at the high school level. Of course, not all high schools participated, and some students’ votes are perhaps a rebellion against their parents’ views rather than a reflection of them. We will know in a week whether the high school vote was significant or not. In the meantime, watch for both Trump and Clinton to increase their Minnesota ad buys.
Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.