How Operation Metro Surge helped fuel Minnesota’s Democratic sweep

Months after thousands of federal agents descended on Minnesota, the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown remained a powerful force in the state’s election. It shaped voters’ choices, mobilized volunteers, took Republicans by surprise and reached far beyond the communities where the crackdown unfolded. An NBC national exit poll found that 58% of all voters — and 90% of Democrats — thought President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement went too far. In Minnesota, voters carried memories of frightened children, disrupted schools and fears for relatives into the voting booth Tuesday, with many citing last winter’s federal immigration crackdown as they backed Democrats by striking margins. Some Republicans acknowledged they had underestimated how deeply Operation Metro Surge had lodged itself in the political consciousness of Minnesotans. After the election results came in, Minnesota Republican Party Chair Alex Plechash conceded that the surge and the war in Iran had mattered more than he anticipated. “I didn’t expect we would sweep, but I did expect we’d have some wins,” after focusing much of the party’s messaging around fraud, he said. Advertisement The operation brought a historic surge of federal agents to Minnesota, weeks of clashes with protesters and the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. On Tuesday, it became clear just how much the crackdown had meant to many of the people casting ballots. At Pretti’s memorial in south Minneapolis, red “I Voted” stickers dotted a lamppost and poster boards, a visual spread widely on social media. In east Duluth, David Sorensen recalled relatives in Minneapolis whose grade school had been “stalked” by immigration officers. “It just broke our hearts,” he said. Suburban voter Marilyn Helberg, 28, said she felt a particular obligation to vote because some relatives were not citizens and could not vote themselves. Bill Quenroe, a political independent whose wife is from Peru, voted for Democrats all the way down the ticket.