Why Franken Should Kiss Duluth’s Ass

Yesterday on the Degausser we suggested that MN’s Arrowhead region could tip in favor of Franken. Boy howdy did it.

Because of the impending recount, all results reported here are technically unofficial, but Franken carried the region by 18 points (33,560 votes).

For those of you metro-centric folks who refer to anything outside of Minneapolis/St. Paul as outstate, here’s a map of the Arrowhead region (shaded in red). The counties that make up this region are Aitken, Carlton, Cook, Itasca, Koochicing (Kooch for those in the know. Or, if you want to get fancy, combine it with Itasca to get Kootasca), Lake, and Saint Louis. The major city here is Duluth (my home town, woot!).

Anyway, this region is reliable DFL territory. However, due to Franken’s rocky start and lack of strong ties outside of the metro-area, it was up in the air as to how he would perform in the North Country. Apparently, Franken went over well. Here are the numbers:

	Franken	Coleman	Barkley
Saint Louis	64,319	38,267	14,275
Lake	3,304	2,434	863
Cook	1,620	1,206	458
Carlton	9,517	6,099	2,555
Aitken	3,897	3,617	1,770
Itasca	11,544	9,264	3,182
Koochiching	3,091	2,845	721
TOTAL	97,292	63,732	23,824
Percent	52.6%	34.5%	12.9%

In Duluth, Franken won by more than 20 points and St. Louis County had the highest percentage of Franken voters than any other county in the state, including Hennepin. Duluth also had a whopping 85% turnout rate, which will probably be one of the highest in the country.

The Arrowhead region provided Franken with over 8% of his total votes. Given the turnout and wide margin that he beat Coleman by in this area, Franken owes his recount to Northeastern MN, and specifically to Duluth.