Republicans hoping to win in Minnesota focus on state Legislature

For hours every afternoon, Wayne Johnson crisscrosses subdivision streets, knocking on doors and ringing doorbells, leaving leaflets in screen door handles and sometimes giving his pitch to voters.

Johnson, a Republican running for the Legislature in a hotly contested open seat in the east metro against DFLer Lucia Wroblewski, is largely working on his own around Lake Elmo and Afton. He’s relying on a list of voters supplied by the state Republican Party with no army of volunteers, just one other person, and putting a lot of miles on his slip-on Skechers shoes. He says he tries to engage with everyone, without regard for party affiliation.

“I talk to everybody,” he said. “Let’s have a conversation.”

For Republicans and the groups supporting them, a bout of early-summer optimism about flipping the state for former President Donald Trump has narrowed to the ambition of winning back the state House of Representatives by flipping a few districts.



https://www.startribune.com/republicans-hoping-to-win-in-minnesota-focus-on-legislature/601148996