Big Picture
The Minnesota State Fair is officially underway.
That means 12 days of livestock, crop art, politicians pretending they enjoy being photographed while eating and Minnesotans voluntarily waiting 45 minutes to purchase something that has been battered, deep-fried and placed on a stick.
But the Great Minnesota Get-Together also arrives at an unusually appropriate moment in Minnesota politics. The primaries are over. The general election is beginning. And after months of endorsements, debates, conventions and campaign advertisements, Minnesota voters are finally getting a clearer sense of what each candidate is serving.
So Blue North Beacon decided to answer the obvious question: If Minnesota’s major political candidates were State Fair foods, what would they be?
Our selections were determined through an exhaustive methodology involving political analysis, culinary judgment and absolutely no peer review.
Amy Klobuchar: Sweet Martha’s Cookies
There was really no other choice. Sweet Martha’s isn’t the newest or flashiest thing at the Fair. Nobody walks onto the fairgrounds wondering whether people have heard of it.
It is simply an institution. That can be said of Klobuchar as well. For the last twenty years, she has been the highest profile institution in Minnesota politics and produced meaningful legislation at the clip that Martha’s pumps out cookies.
Klobuchar entered the governor’s race with near-universal name recognition, enormous institutional support and an electoral track record that would make most Minnesota politicians jealous.
And like Sweet Martha’s, her greatest political advantage may simply be that an enormous number of Minnesotans already know exactly what they’re getting.
Critics can complain that there are newer and more interesting things available. Then somebody walks past carrying the bucket – and you want one (or four) anyway.
Lisa Demuth: The Pronto Pup
Traditional. Straightforward. Reliably conservative. But not quite the same thing as the corn dog next door.
That feels appropriate for Demuth.
The House speaker emerged from a Republican primary containing a Trump-endorsed Mike Lindell and GOP-endorsed Kendall Qualls by offering Republican voters something recognizably conservative without necessarily offering the most MAGA version available. That distinction could become her entire general-election challenge.
Demuth needs Republican voters to recognize that she’s one of them while persuading swing voters that there is a meaningful difference between her and the national Republican brand.
Which brings us back to the eternal Minnesota State Fair question: What’s actually the difference between a Pronto Pup and a corn dog?
Demuth may spend the next two months trying to convince voters the distinction matters.
Peggy Flanagan: The Apple Donut Ham Grinder
You recognize most of the ingredients but you probably haven’t seen them put together quite like this.
The Apple Donut Ham Grinder takes Minnesota-grown apples, batters and deep-fries them like donuts, then stacks them with ham, arugula, hot honey and whipped ricotta on a hoagie roll. Which, strangely enough, isn’t a bad metaphor for Peggy Flanagan’s candidacy.
Flanagan isn’t running away from the DFL tradition. She’s arguing that familiar ingredients can be assembled into a different version of it - more progressive, more diverse and more explicitly rooted in the coalition that increasingly defines the party’s activist base.
There are also recognizable pieces of the old DFL recipe: labor, working families and an economic populism that would sound familiar to generations of Minnesota Democrats. Flanagan has combined them with a newer progressive politics - and a coalition of progressives, labor, younger voters and traditional DFL constituencies - that may look unconventional on the ingredient list but has an internal logic once assembled.
Sweet, savory, spicy, creamy: the primary demonstrated that Flanagan could turn disparate ingredients into a winning coalition. The result isn’t exactly traditional State Fair fare. But that’s the point.
Flanagan’s argument in the primary was essentially that Minnesota Democrats didn’t need to abandon the DFL recipe. They needed to update it. And voters ordered it.
Now comes the bigger test: It worked at the DFL table but will the rest of Minnesota want a bite in November?
Michele Tafoya: Deep-Fried Ranch Dressing
You probably had a reaction just reading those words.
Deep-fried ranch dressing debuted at the State Fair as exactly the kind of food the Great Minnesota Get-Together does best: bold, attention-grabbing and virtually guaranteed to make people immediately declare themselves either intrigued or appalled.
There aren’t many neutral reactions and that feels about right for Michele Tafoya.
Tafoya enters the general election with something most first-time candidates would desperately want: people already know who she is. Years as one of the country’s most recognizable sports broadcasters gave her a public profile that most political newcomers spend millions trying to manufacture.
But high name recognition comes with a catch – people may already have opinions.
Since leaving the sidelines, Tafoya has developed a decidedly conservative public persona — weighing in on politics, culture and some of the country’s most divisive political debates. Now, as the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, she has to determine whether that visibility is an electoral asset or a ceiling.
Because Tafoya’s challenge isn’t getting Minnesotans to notice her, they’ve noticed. It isn’t even getting people to talk about her, they’re talking. Her challenge is persuading enough of the people who took one look and decided “not for me” to reconsider.
Deep-fried ranch dressing understands the problem.
Keith Ellison: Cheese Curds
A Minnesota staple. Loved passionately by its constituency. Viewed considerably less enthusiastically by some people outside it. And after all these years, still drawing a crowd.
Keith Ellison has been a fixture of Minnesota DFL politics for two decades - from the Legislature to Congress to the Attorney General’s Office - and remains one of the most recognizable progressive politicians in the state.
Republicans have spent years trying to make him politically indigestible, Minnesota voters keep ordering another basket.
That durability matters. Ellison has survived millions in negative advertising, close elections, and repeated Republican efforts to turn his political profile into a liability.
And yet, election after election, the cheese curds remain on the menu.
Steve Simon: All-You-Can-Drink Milk
Reliable. Inexpensive. Not particularly flashy. And that’s pretty much the point.
Secretary of State Steve Simon has spent more than a decade overseeing Minnesota elections while maintaining one of the decidedly less theatrical political brands in a state increasingly filled with theatrical politicians.
You don’t hear much about him when everything is working. Then election season arrives, conspiracy theories start circulating and suddenly everyone remembers why the booth is there.
Simon has built his political identity around essentially the same proposition as the State Fair’s all-you-can-drink milk stand: It isn’t new. It isn’t flashy. Nobody is going to put it on a list of the Fair’s craziest attractions. It just reliably does what it says on the sign.
Tim Walz: Turkey Leg
Big. Messy. Impossible to consume gracefully. And after eight years, undeniably part of the scenery.
Walz isn’t on the ballot anymore, but he remains unavoidable in the campaign to succeed him.
Klobuchar will inherit questions about the DFL’s record. Demuth will try to make the election a referendum on it. Fraud, spending, taxes, mining and the legacy of the Walz years will all remain on the menu.
So while the governor may be leaving, the turkey leg is still sitting on the table.
Angie Craig: Cheese-on-a-Stick
Familiar. Substantial. Dependable. And perhaps overshadowed this year by something newer on the menu.
Craig entered the Senate primary with many of the ingredients that ordinarily make for a formidable statewide candidate: a competitive-district electoral record, strong fundraising, significant labor support and a political brand built around winning voters Democrats sometimes struggle to reach.
Then Peggy Flanagan won the nomination.
But losing one contest doesn’t suddenly make Craig politically irrelevant. She remains a member of Congress from one of Minnesota’s most consequential swing districts and a leading voice for the more moderate, suburban and labor-oriented wing of the DFL.
Sometimes the new food gets all the attention.
That doesn’t mean people stopped liking cheese on a stick.
Mike Lindell: Deep-Fried Twinkie
You know exactly what you’re getting. It’s loud. It’s excessive. It isn’t pretending to be good for you. And nobody has ever encountered one and thought: I wonder what the subtle version of this would be.
That’s Mike Lindell.
The MyPillow founder entered the governor’s race with Donald Trump’s endorsement, enormous name recognition and perhaps the most unmistakable political persona of anyone on Minnesota’s ballot. There was no triangulation. No careful repositioning. No attempt to become something more digestible for a broader audience.
Lindell offered Republican voters the full thing. They took a bite and decided to order something else.
Tina Smith: Fresh-Squeezed Lemonade
Not everything at the State Fair needs to be deep-fried, covered in hot honey or engineered to go viral. Sometimes you just want a good lemonade.
That’s Tina Smith.
Smith arrived in the U.S. Senate under unusual circumstances, appointed to replace Al Franken before winning the seat twice in her own right. She never became Minnesota’s loudest politician. She didn’t seem particularly interested in trying.
Instead, Smith built a reputation as a thoughtful, progressive, and pragmatic legislator with a particular focus on health care, mental health, reproductive rights, rural communities and the economic issues affecting working families. In an era of politics increasingly designed to generate attention, there was something refreshing about a senator who often seemed more interested in doing the work than getting credit for it.
Now, after choosing not to seek another term, Smith is preparing to leave the Senate. And perhaps that’s when you appreciate the lemonade most.
It wasn’t the flashiest thing at the Fair. It wasn’t supposed to be. Minnesota was simply lucky to have it (and her) while it was here.
Bottom Line
State Fair foods and political candidates ultimately confront the same unforgiving test.
You can have terrific marketing. You can generate enormous buzz. You can convince people to stand in line. You can even get everyone talking about you.
Eventually, somebody has to take a bite. Minnesota voters get their turn in November.