Outside a polling place in South St. Paul, reporter Tim Nelson finds out what's driving voters this year
Ben MacKenzie casts his voting ballot with his daughter Owen Mackenzie on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022, in St. Paul.
Kerem Yücel | MPR News
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MPR News reporter Tim Nelson joined Cathy Wurzer to recap his time speaking with voters outside the Kaposia Education Center, an elementary school in South St. Paul, Minn.
Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation. Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.
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Audio transcript
INTERVIEWER: Tim Nelson was out talking to voters this morning, and spent several hours at the Kaposia Education Center. That's an elementary school in South St. Paul. He joins us right now. Hey, Tim.
TIM NELSON: Hey, Cathy. You could have checked any precinct, but you went to South St. Paul. Why did you do that? Well, a couple of things. You know, suburbs are really the key to the legislature this year. You know, a defeated DFL State Senator is on the ballot for County attorney even there at Kaposi Education Center. Kind of showing the back and forth of the suburbs there.
And it's not just the legislatures, not just ours. It's-- Congress is battling in the suburbs this year as well. Redistricting has-- redrawn party lines even more starkly after the 2020 census. And these fluid population areas are in a lot of cases the battlegrounds where the US House is won and lost.
The other sort of interesting-- interesting things going on there, the Legal Marijuana Now Party has candidates on the second congressional district ballot-- that's the Southeastern suburbs, as well as the state house ballot that district-- Rick Hanson's district-- he's the incumbent there, he's facing one of these marijuana candidates. This is another big test of that third-party factor, and how it may be hacking the traditional GOP, DFL structures that have been around for 50 years now.
The other really interesting thing on the ballot down there, 22 candidates for four school board seats. It's just kind of an indication of that agitation over school curriculum, sex education, school segregation, all those issues that have really come to a boil in the last couple of years kind of the epicenter of the current culture battles.
INTERVIEWER: 22 candidates for four school board seats. Wow!
TIM NELSON: It's like a full sheet when you look at it.
INTERVIEWER: Right. I know. So what were voters telling you? As they were waiting in line?
TIM NELSON: A couple of things. You know, interestingly, every woman who I talked to brought up abortion. They were very concerned about it, whether they feared a ban or that opponents might not take full advantage of the Dobbs' decision, and enact significant new restrictions. I talked to Julia Hagen, owner of a preschool who was quite emotional about it.
JULIA HAGEN: Our basic civil rights are at stake. And I just feel strongly that-- [SIGHS] our bodies belong to us and us alone.
TIM NELSON: Now, this was her top issue, and she really felt that the country was on the verge of making a serious mistake. And others were telling me that they felt mistakes had already been made. That inflation has been allowed to run rampant, that the US pullout from Afghanistan was incompetently-handled, crime wasn't being dealt with squarely. And that the party in power was solely to blame in Washington. Here's Dale Hartnett, another South St Paul voter.
DALE HARTNETT: Things are so upside down as far as law enforcement. As far as immigration. As far as inflation. All those are on the ballot, right now. The line in there, and the amount of people in there is a good indication--
TIM NELSON: And I should say Cathy, there were like 40 people waiting to get in when I got there.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, interesting. I'm curious, what else did you hear?
TIM NELSON: You know, these voters I-- I should say the-- a couple of observations, these voters were very much the exception. I've spent every election day hitting up voters, and I've done it all over the Twin Cities, and it seems like it gets a little harder every year to walk up to someone with a microphone, and get them to talk. This year was really hard. With people really disinclined to say anything that might be public.
I think it just feels like this part of this general trend from virtual precinct caucuses, to the declining number of candidate debates, even to the decline in lawn signs, and the blizzard of TV ads. It's just politics-- it just seems to be less and less perceived as a shared public experience like it used to be. The other thing I would add is-- is there's very much a feeling that this whole voting enterprise is up for grabs 1 to 1 degree or another. I talked to Republicans who were upset to find Dominion voting equipment at the polls with a network cable plugged into the side of it.
Even if they didn't think votes were being changed fraudulently, like some folks said in 2020, they just seem to think that they weren't being heard about their concerns. I talked to one voter Nathan Ronchi who said, he just doesn't believe the explanations that elections officials have been giving.
NATHAN RONCHI: My dad's been an election judge in the past, and has worked with people and sometimes some of the election judges who are working not say anything about this place, different times, different places. But some people will maybe let the rules bend just a little bit more than they should. So it's definitely a possibility that people do vote who aren't supposed to.
TIM NELSON: On the other hand, I talked to a woman who actually referred to the more V. Harper case the Supreme Court's about to hear that could give state legislatures unprecedented power in elections. Others mentioned the January 6 attacks on the Capitol, and wondered can we ever get back to and count on normal transfers of power?
INTERVIEWER: Well, we appreciate you getting out there, and talking to the voters as you've done every election cycle since you got to NPR. I really appreciate this. Thank you so much Tim.
TIM NELSON: Thanks for having me.
TIM NELSON: Hey, Cathy. You could have checked any precinct, but you went to South St. Paul. Why did you do that? Well, a couple of things. You know, suburbs are really the key to the legislature this year. You know, a defeated DFL State Senator is on the ballot for County attorney even there at Kaposi Education Center. Kind of showing the back and forth of the suburbs there.
And it's not just the legislatures, not just ours. It's-- Congress is battling in the suburbs this year as well. Redistricting has-- redrawn party lines even more starkly after the 2020 census. And these fluid population areas are in a lot of cases the battlegrounds where the US House is won and lost.
The other sort of interesting-- interesting things going on there, the Legal Marijuana Now Party has candidates on the second congressional district ballot-- that's the Southeastern suburbs, as well as the state house ballot that district-- Rick Hanson's district-- he's the incumbent there, he's facing one of these marijuana candidates. This is another big test of that third-party factor, and how it may be hacking the traditional GOP, DFL structures that have been around for 50 years now.
The other really interesting thing on the ballot down there, 22 candidates for four school board seats. It's just kind of an indication of that agitation over school curriculum, sex education, school segregation, all those issues that have really come to a boil in the last couple of years kind of the epicenter of the current culture battles.
INTERVIEWER: 22 candidates for four school board seats. Wow!
TIM NELSON: It's like a full sheet when you look at it.
INTERVIEWER: Right. I know. So what were voters telling you? As they were waiting in line?
TIM NELSON: A couple of things. You know, interestingly, every woman who I talked to brought up abortion. They were very concerned about it, whether they feared a ban or that opponents might not take full advantage of the Dobbs' decision, and enact significant new restrictions. I talked to Julia Hagen, owner of a preschool who was quite emotional about it.
JULIA HAGEN: Our basic civil rights are at stake. And I just feel strongly that-- [SIGHS] our bodies belong to us and us alone.
TIM NELSON: Now, this was her top issue, and she really felt that the country was on the verge of making a serious mistake. And others were telling me that they felt mistakes had already been made. That inflation has been allowed to run rampant, that the US pullout from Afghanistan was incompetently-handled, crime wasn't being dealt with squarely. And that the party in power was solely to blame in Washington. Here's Dale Hartnett, another South St Paul voter.
DALE HARTNETT: Things are so upside down as far as law enforcement. As far as immigration. As far as inflation. All those are on the ballot, right now. The line in there, and the amount of people in there is a good indication--
TIM NELSON: And I should say Cathy, there were like 40 people waiting to get in when I got there.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, interesting. I'm curious, what else did you hear?
TIM NELSON: You know, these voters I-- I should say the-- a couple of observations, these voters were very much the exception. I've spent every election day hitting up voters, and I've done it all over the Twin Cities, and it seems like it gets a little harder every year to walk up to someone with a microphone, and get them to talk. This year was really hard. With people really disinclined to say anything that might be public.
I think it just feels like this part of this general trend from virtual precinct caucuses, to the declining number of candidate debates, even to the decline in lawn signs, and the blizzard of TV ads. It's just politics-- it just seems to be less and less perceived as a shared public experience like it used to be. The other thing I would add is-- is there's very much a feeling that this whole voting enterprise is up for grabs 1 to 1 degree or another. I talked to Republicans who were upset to find Dominion voting equipment at the polls with a network cable plugged into the side of it.
Even if they didn't think votes were being changed fraudulently, like some folks said in 2020, they just seem to think that they weren't being heard about their concerns. I talked to one voter Nathan Ronchi who said, he just doesn't believe the explanations that elections officials have been giving.
NATHAN RONCHI: My dad's been an election judge in the past, and has worked with people and sometimes some of the election judges who are working not say anything about this place, different times, different places. But some people will maybe let the rules bend just a little bit more than they should. So it's definitely a possibility that people do vote who aren't supposed to.
TIM NELSON: On the other hand, I talked to a woman who actually referred to the more V. Harper case the Supreme Court's about to hear that could give state legislatures unprecedented power in elections. Others mentioned the January 6 attacks on the Capitol, and wondered can we ever get back to and count on normal transfers of power?
INTERVIEWER: Well, we appreciate you getting out there, and talking to the voters as you've done every election cycle since you got to NPR. I really appreciate this. Thank you so much Tim.
TIM NELSON: Thanks for having me.
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