Republican candidate for Senate Royce White (C) poses for a photo before a rally featuring U.S. Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump on July 27, 2024 in St Cloud, Minnesota. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
Far-right conspiracy theorist Royce White won his U.S. Senate primary on Tuesday, taking advantage of a big field of candidates to eke out a victory with less than 40% of the vote.
White was endorsed by the Minnesota Republican Party in May despite a lengthy history of bigoted comments against women, Jews and LGBTQ people, in addition to findings of campaign finance irregularities and missing child support payments.
His endorsement and subsequent victory are emblematic of an ongoing rift between institutionalists and burn-it-all-down activists who are increasingly frustrated with the partyâs failure to win a statewide race since 2006. That split is plainly on display in the geography of yesterdayâs primary results.
The maps above show precinct-level vote counts for Royce White and Joe Fraser, the mainstream candidate who came in second with about 29% of the statewide vote.
Note that the maps show counts, not percentages: Because primary turnout is so low, in rural parts of the state one or two votes can mean the difference between winning 0% and 100% of a given precinct. Comparing raw counts between the two candidates allows for a clearer picture of where the differences in support lie.
While both candidates had considerable support in the populous Twin Cities suburbs, White was particularly strong along the southern and western parts of the suburban ring. He beat Fraser by 14 percentage points in Scott County and by nearly two-to-one in neighboring Carver County.
White also performed well in central Minnesota along the line of cities running north from St. Cloud into the heart of lake country, where communities like Brainerd and Nisswa lie.
But the west-central part of the state shows perhaps the biggest difference in support between the candidates. White dominated in the arc of communities running from Alexandria to Fergus Falls and up through Detroit Lakes and Pelican Lakes.
Not coincidentally, that region has seen some of the fiercest conflicts between Republican activists and party leaders. Earlier this year, for instance, a far-right group of Otter Tail County Republicans successfully prevented the party from endorsing incumbent U.S. Rep. Michelle Fischbach of the 7th Congressional District.
Their goal was to elevate the primary campaign of Christian nationalist Steve Boyd, an Alexandria businessman who pledged to âharness Godâs power to lead ordinary Americans and their legislators in Washington back towards the Lord.â Boyd and Fischbach are virtually identical in their policy views; the only major difference is that Boyd couches his appeals to voters in explicitly religious terms.
Ultimately the push to unseat Fischbach was unsuccessful, with the incumbent winning the 7th by nearly two-to-one.
Those results illustrate how Royce Whiteâs statewide anti-establishment campaign succeeded while Steve Boydâs failed: In the 7th District, White actually won fewer votes (15,737) than Boyd (16,645). But White benefited from the remaining two-thirds of the vote being split among seven other Republican candidates. Boyd was taking on Fischbach head-to-head.
Whiteâs victory is reminiscent of former President Donald Trumpâs primary win in 2016, when the reality TV show host was able to take advantage of a party establishment that couldnât settle on an alternative.
The end result is unlikely to resemble 2016, however: Recent polls show Sen. Amy Klobuchar beating any Republican challenger by more than 20 points.
But the race underscores how a committed core of hardcore activists can eke out victory when a party establishment fails to unify around a candidate.
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