Thank you for being part of our Minneapolis DFL Coordinated Campaign

The days after an election defeat are hard, but volunteers with Minneapolis DFL did an incredible job and made a real difference.

Today is Thursday after the election. First of all, this is a time for grieving. Grieving not only for the immediate loss, but for the consequences that we know are coming. It is not true that we are all going to be alright.

If a Trump trifecta passes a national abortion ban, more women will die in miscarriage. If a Trump trifecta bans queer and trans visibility and health care, our neighbors will be attacked and suicides will increase like before. If a Trump administration really does ban vaccines, that will have enormous consequences for public health.

For the more than 4,000 volunteers and DFL staff that were part of the Minneapolis DFL coordinated campaign, thank you for everything you put into this campaign. Whether you canvassed apartment doors, made phone calls in an action center, wrote personal postcards in a library, or donated your hard-earned dollars to our efforts, thank you. Your efforts made a measurable, real difference in Minneapolis and Minnesota.

In Minneapolis, we made 371,000 canvass contact attempts and had 45,000 conversations, for a contact rate of 12.2%. Each of those 45 thousand conversations increased the chances that a voter would vote and that a voter would vote DFL. We saw that in the numbers for Minnesota compared to Minneapolis.

For the state of Minnesota, from 2020 to 2024, voter turnout decreased by 3.79% points from 79.96% to 76.17%. In the city of Minneapolis, voter turnout decreased by less than half that, from 87.34% in 2020 to 86.09% in 2024. Having a strong coordinated campaign to Get Out The Vote made a real, measurable difference.

We also saw this in the DFL nominee share of the vote. For the state of Minnesota, from 2020 to 2024, Biden to Harris went from 52.40% to 50.88%, a drop of 1.52% points. In the city of Minneapolis, Biden to Harris went from 81.93% to 80.65%, a drop of 1.28% points. Organizing in Minneapolis with Minneapolis DFL and our Minnesota DFL partners helped keep the statewide margin from slipping further.

There are 10 weeks until the inauguration, and now is the time to rest, take a little break from the daily news notifications, and start planning for what we are going to do to keep Minnesota and Minneapolis a welcoming home that invests in people and respects our neighbors for who they are and how they show up in the world.

With you in this work, together.

Conrad Lange Zbikowski
Chair, Minneapolis DFL
conrad@minneapolisdfl.org