Minnesota Lawyer
Darin Broton
A bipartisan panel of political analysts gazed into their crystal balls on Wednesday afternoon following the primary election to foretell the race to this year’s November general election. At the forum sponsored by Politics In Minnesota, DFLers Darin Broton and David Lillehaug and Republicans Laura Brod and Gregg Peppin gave their take on the races for governor and Legislature.
Lillehaug on the role of the DFL Party in this year’s gubernatorial primary:
“You can say what you want about the endorsement process, but one thing that is clear is the DFL Party ground troops came through in this election. I just think they didn’t have a message from their (endorsed) candidate sufficient to push them over the top, but it was darn close.”
Peppin on Independence Party candidate Tom Horner’s potential effect on the Democratic candidate Mark Dayton and Republican candidate Tom Emmer in the general election:
“I believe there are more egg-head, limousine liberals who will go from Dayton to Horner, than there are moderate Republicans that will go from Emmer to Horner.”
Broton on the Republicans’ chances to pick up seats in the Minnesota Legislature:
“The Senate is probably a better opportunity for Republicans than the House. The problem that the Senate Republican Caucus has is they’re broke.”
Brod on the tone of the general election campaign for governor:
“I agree the money coming in from outside is going to weigh heavily on the race. I think the race is going to go negative early, it’s going to stay negative for a while and then I think it will tone down at the end and spike back up again.”
For a full account of the panel, please see Monday’s edition of Capitol Report.
