CANTON,
Minn. — Canton, population 428, was settled by Nordic immigrant
farmers. The area’s prim dairy barns, lush hills and deep valleys are
what city people picture when they imagine escaping to a quieter life.
Canton
sits near a crossroads of three political battleground states: Iowa,
with its first-in-primary-season caucuses; Wisconsin, where progressives
are battling an ambitious Republican governor; and iconoclastic
Minnesota, whose congressional tastes range from the liberal Al Franken
to the evangelical Michele Bachmann.
These
states make up a big chunk of the crucial Midwestern electorate. All
three went Democratic in the 2012 election, and so far, they’ve been
more resistant to Donald Trump than Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and
Pennsylvania, suggesting that his appeal to white, working-class
resentment has limits.
Conversely,
this region could prove fertile ground for Hillary Clinton, especially
if she can provide answers to a three-year decline in commodity prices
that — combined with rising health costs — has persuaded some farmers to
sell out. She must also convince longtime progressives here that her
new, more liberal positions are more than just a response to Bernie
Sanders.
Mostly
white, this region is home to pockets of minorities, from Native
Americans to Amish to Hmong. Its Democrats range from trade unionists to
members of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, a populist
amalgam of farm workers, former hippies and socialist Scandinavians. Mr.
Sanders won Minnesota and Wisconsin in landslides. Mrs. Clinton beat
Mr. Sanders in Iowa by less than a percentage point.
Republicans
here are pro-gun and anti-regulation, yet they favor federal farm
subsidies and other agriculture assistance. Minnesota was the only state
that Marco Rubio won, with Mr. Trump coming in third. Republicans chose
Ted Cruz in Iowa, and Mr. Trump came in second. In Wisconsin, Mr. Trump
suffered a 13-point defeat to Mr. Cruz, who had the backing of Gov.
Scott Walker. Some of this may explain why Representative Paul Ryan, the
speaker of the House and Wisconsin Republicans’ favorite son, took
until Thursday to issue an endorsement of Mr. Trump.
Lanhee
Chen, domestic policy adviser for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign
and adviser this season to Mr. Rubio, points out that Mr. Trump’s
message may not have resonated as much in this region as in the Rust
Belt because more people here hold jobs in academia, technology and
agriculture — jobs that are less threatened by foreign competition and
immigrant labor than factory work is. Mr. Trump’s stance against Mexican
immigrants got little traction among dairy farmers, some of whom rely
on immigrant labor.
In
any case, Mr. Trump should not be putting his hopes in people like
Vance and Bonnie Haugen, who milk 180 head on 270 acres near Canton,
where they raised three children. Mr. Haugen, a political independent,
worked the phones for Bernie Sanders, and both he and his wife voted for
Mr. Sanders.
“Taking
care of people, making sure that there’s health care for all, and
retirement, that message resonates with a lot of folks of Scandinavian
background,” Mr. Haugen said. “Do I think he has a viable program? Hell
no. But his heart is in the right place.” The Haugens will vote for
Hillary Clinton in the general election, which is good news for her. But
there’s one member of the family she might worry about, and that is the
Haugens’ son Olaf, 31, who told me he’s inclined not to vote.
Interviews
with voters throughout this region turned up many who seem anesthetized
by years of Washington gridlock and convinced that their lives won’t
change no matter who occupies the White House, 1,000 miles east. Olaf,
who runs the dairy operation and plants soybeans on additional land
nearby, is among the disenchanted. “I don’t know how much that stuff
affects my day-to-day,” he said of presidential politics.
“Anybody who
gets in there has got to work with the nutbags in Congress, so there’s
not a lot of harm or good that they can do.”
Mr.
Trump, he said, is “scary,” a “true loose cannon,” so in the end Olaf
may force himself to the polls and vote for Mrs. Clinton. But she
clearly has some proving to do — that she’s not “just a standard
politician who gives you lip service.”
