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It’s the day before Minnesota deer hunting season opens on Saturday and local hunters are out this morning, waiting in line in the dark outside Fleet Farm in Oakdale for the special 6 a.m. opening. They wait for the yearly “Orange Friday” giveaway — a free neon orange sports cap — and a discount deal for most anything in the store.

Inside the store, general manager Andrew Hazelton awaits with a shopping cart full of 500 caps for the first 500 customers. The hat reads “Orange Friday 2024” with antlers.

Hunters span political affiliations and backgrounds, and the range of opinions among Minnesotans preparing for the hunt was broad. Many were hesitant to talk, fearing criticism from loved ones or the public, but some spoke openly. 

Vern Anderson has been deer hunting since 1964. He’s outside waiting on line, wearing a camo hoodie with the hood engulfing most of his head. He knows exactly what he wants once he gets inside.

“My annual orange cap and some bird seed,” said Anderson, a self-described “very young” 71-year-old. 

When talk turns to his feelings about Tuesday’s election results, he doesn’t mince words.

“Absolutely happier than you can imagine. That was the person I wanted back in there,” he said, referring to President-elect Donald Trump. “I am so happy that he’s going to be my president for four more years, and his leadership is so needed both national and internationally that I’m just ecstatic.”

Anderson said he couldn’t sleep the night the results rolled in. And now he hopes to see some change.

“I’d like to see gas prices come down, I’d like to see the inflation rate come down even more and make it a little bit easier for people to buy just groceries,” he said. He’s retired and he said he’d like prices “that enable me to continue to live a good life without having to spend more and more and more on all the expenses going on in life,” he added.

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Gregory Daigle, 78, grew up in Deer River and has been deer hunting since 1962. He is very focused today on what he wants from Fleet Farm.

“I’ve already got all my stuff, so I just pick up my hat, and then I’m gone,” he said.

Daigle, who said he cast his first vote for president from Antarctica in 1968 for Minnesota Democrat Hubert Humphrey, said he felt “very good” about Trump’s win.

This year he voted split ticket for Trump and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

He’d like for Trump to curtail some of his comments.

“As much as I do like a lot of his ideas, I’d like him to be a little more congenial. I’d like him to not be quite so off the wall,” he said.

He said Vice President Kamala Harris was not “a real politician” and was unsure she could “handle the stress of the world issues today,” he said. But someone else was repelling him from voting blue.

“I was glad the vote turned out the way it did. Just put it this way … I could never vote for Harris, because I would never vote for Gov. Walz,” he said. “I didn’t want him to come back to Minnesota, but guess what? Here he is. He’s not my favorite politician.”

The Oakdale store is in Washington County, which went for Harris by almost 9 points on Tuesday.

There were also Harris voters-slash-hunters on line such as Dan Murphy, 42, of White Bear Lake. Murphy said he’s been a frequent Orange Friday customer and has been a deer hunter for 20 years.

He said he was a registered Republican until after former President George W. Bush’s first term ended in 2004.

He fears for his family’s future, saying he was “incredibly disappointed, frustrated and angry” by Trump’s election.

“I thought that as a country, we had a better identity of what we wanted in our leaders,” he said. “Here was a chance for us to move forward as a country and show ourselves and help solidify women’s rights. Instead, we went backwards.”

Murphy and his wife are rethinking their plans.

“My wife and I are planning on a second child, and we’re seriously contemplating that decision because of what happens if there’s a complication and a national abortion ban or something like that goes into effect?,” he pondered. “Do we want to raise our child in a country that doesn’t value women as humans and afford them the same autonomy and rights that men have?”

“I think the Democratic Party really needs to figure out why this happened. But until they’re starting to capture the votes of people in lines like this,” he said, gesturing to the hunters making their way into the store, “this is going to keep happening to them. If you don’t talk to people that are in this line today and addressing the problems they have, you’re going to keep losing.”

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Hundreds waited outside Fleet Farm in Oakdale before sunrise Friday, seeking gear for the deer hunting opener the next day. Their takes on Donald Trump’s win ranged from ecstatic to angry.

At Fleet Farm in Oakdale, hunters offer glimpse into range of reactions to Trump win

Ben Hovland | MPR News

A man walks through orange hunting clothes in a store

At Fleet Farm in Oakdale, hunters offer glimpse into range of reactions to Trump win

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