For the first time in living memory, Republicans control all the State House seats on the Iron Range. Meantime, a resounding national victory for President-elect Trump in last Tuesday’s election holds immediate and long term implications for our region.
The local GOP legislative wins weren’t unexpected. DFLers maintained hope that they might keep District 7B on the eastern Mesabi or win back the vast Arrowhead district of 3A, but even under the rosiest scenarios those hopes carried long odds.
Ultimately, Republican Cal Warwas defeated DFLer Lorrie Janatopoulos by almost 13 percentage points. Two years ago, DFL State Rep. David Lislegard eked out a re-election win. He decided to retire just before the filing deadline, leaving Janatopoulos to quickly assemble a campaign. Her campaign was vigorous, but the result was likely baked in long ago.
In District 3A, Rep. Roger Skraba (R-Ely) greatly expanded his margin of victory from the nail biter he won in 2022. He carried almost 56% to 41% by Harley Droba, the DFL mayor of International Falls.
On the periphery of the Iron Range, Rep. Natalie Zeleznikar (R-Fredenberg Township) narrowly won District 3B in Hermantown, Proctor and rural Duluth. She beat retired judge Mark Munger, a DFLer, by an estimated 160 votes in a very close race. That district will remain on both parties’ target list because it’s now had two very close elections in a row.
My math indicated that if Republicans swept these three districts they’d have a very good chance of winning a majority in the State House. As of this writing, they’ve come very close, but not quite. In fact, the prospect of a 67-67 tie in the chamber is possible. That hasn’t happened since 1978, a situation that had a northern Minnesota angle.
The tie scenario baffled the legislature then as it surely will again now. At first, the two parties couldn’t find a way to select a Speaker, meaning that Secretary of State Joan Growe served as interim speaker. Neither party wanted that outcome long term, so eventually — aided by the heart attack of a DFL member — Republicans elected Rod Searle as speaker, leaving many committees to DFL leadership.
The DFL leader in the House, Irv Anderson of International Falls, nevertheless pressed his advantages with a tie to put the brakes on Republican bills. In the end, Anderson and Searle served as de fact co-speakers, a complicated situation that nevertheless worked well enough to get to the next election. Anderson ended up speaker after that.
In today’s far more partisan, far less cooperative political climate, it’s hard to imagine this scenario playing out the same way. In fact, because the DFL held the House, Senate and Governor’s desk these past two years, Republicans are very eager to advance their agenda in negotiations. Thus, this is a tie in name only. Republicans have the stopping power they sought, though the margin is as narrow as humanly possible.
It’s not unthinkable that a single lawmaker or small caucus of lawmakers might collaborate to break the tie, though it’s too early to say how that would work. There will be some very interesting closed door meetings and cell phone conversations over the next couple months.
There are two ways to look at the potential impact of Trump’s election on the Iron Range: short-range and long-range.
In the short run, immediate impacts will include the expansion of tariffs on foreign steel and environmental deregulation.
Trump’s entire economic plan hinges on tariffs. This will maintain a captive market for domestic steel in the United States. This sounds good, but will also complicate matters for companies that export steel goods. Pricing will become very important, because if steel prices rise too much, consumers ultimately pay for it. In fact, rising inflation is one reason that most economists warn against using tariffs this way.
We can also expect Trump to lift federal moratoriums on mineral exploration in the watershed of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. With a GOP Congress, we should also expect bills that further deregulate the mining industry.
Here we will observe what Republicans think mining “the right way” really means. Iron Range leaders have long argued that “you can do both” when it comes to environmental protection and mining. Republicans who uttered these lines will now decide what that platitude actually means.
In the long run, superheated tariffs, stock market speculation, and cryptocurrency schemes might trigger a recession that upends local employment. When pellets pile up at the Duluth harbor, mines close. Sometimes for a little while. Sometimes for a long while. Steel companies will look for efficiencies, and that might include industry consolidation.
To that end, I think Trump is more likely to approve Nippon Steel’s bid for U.S. Steel than Kamala Harris would have been. Both said they opposed it, but Trump is a transactional leader and this now provides a clear path for money and influence to move the needle. There’s a reason U.S. Steel hired former Trump Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as an advisor this year.
Trump has more liberty to buck the United Steelworkers, who oppose the merger, because many rank and file members will go along with it. Tension between workers and union leadership will grow, and the specter of job loss will ultimately make the $2 billion in capital investments promised by Nippon too good to pass up.
The next four years will provide a put-up-or-shut-up opportunity for mining companies to develop their industry to modern specifications. Perhaps they’ll now see fit to dip into their deep pockets, provided the euphoria beats any potential economic downturn.
Elections are emotional times, more so in the current environment. We each see the results through a prism of who we believe we are. But all of us interested in the economy of the Iron Range should pay close attention during times like these. When big talk suddenly gets the chance to become real, we learn a great deal of truth about promises and those who make them.
Aaron J. Brown is an author and college instructor from northern Minnesota’s Iron Range. He writes the blog MinnesotaBrown.com and co-hosts the podcast “Power in the Wilderness” on Northern Community Radio. This piece first appeared in the Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024 edition of the Mesabi Tribune.
…”When big talk suddenly gets the chance to become real, we learn a great deal of truth about promises and those who make them.” I wonder what Vic might say?
I sometimes wonder what Vic Power might have thought of our current politics. It’s an interesting thought exercise. Of course, fundamentally, it’s impossible to say. There has been so much social and economic change that he wouldn’t recognize much of this.
Votes for women was ultimately bad for Vic and his “good old boy” style, and that might have colored his views of women’s equality and female political leaders. Vic was a populist who nevertheless strongly resisted socialism. He fought the Klan, but had Klan friends. He was very transactional. These factors could have led a modern Vic Power to MAGA.
However, Vic was also devoted to the rule of law. Even as transactional as he was, he bucked his GOP party to GREAT personal detriment by demanding a return to peacetime free speech after WWI. He did not like the Industrial Workers of the World, but defended the union against unlawful assaults and persecution. He also detested people who make their personal business the sole motivation for their politics. He profited from his political career, but he was big on spreading the wealth around, not hoarding it. He felt that made more wealth in the long run, and I think he was right about that. He did not fall for the MAGA-equivalent movements of his time — especially the klan or nativist groups that sought control of Hibbing politics. The fact that these groups targeted Vic suggests that his opposition to them was meaningful. These are reasons I think he could have resisted MAGA.
We’ll never know. We each slop around in the politics of our time, thinking we know more than we do. That is what I learned “living” in the 1920s during my research. Oh my, how the past echoes, though. I learned that too.
High cost and low grade ore will determine what happens with hard rock mining. Trump cannot change the fact that the battery industry is moving away from nickel, and that transportation cost of raw ore by rail to the only smelter, located in Sudbury Ontario, will be high. Minnesota hard rock mining will sit on the back burner, no matter the regulatory process, until metal prices go high. However, there are other places with better ore and lower cost than Minnesota.
The reality is that young people have abandoned the rural Arrowhead, and the remaining population lives in a past which no longer exists and will not come back. There is only one school and two small towns in the 100 miles along Hwy 53, a major trade route, between The Range and the Canadian border. There is a reason that is the case. It’s because the Boreal Forest has a very low carrying capacity for humans, and another short life mine will not change that.