Party faithful make caucus choices

Yesterday was caucus day in Minnesota. Democrats and Republicans met to propose resolutions for their conventions, select delegates and hold preferential presidential polls.

Republicans met at St. John’s Hall and had the largest slate of candidates to choose from: Senators Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz, businessman Donald Trump with John Kasich and Ben Carson far behind in the pack.

Cook County Republicans chose Rubio, Wednesday -- 40 votes to Ted Cruz’s 27. Ben Carson was very close in third place with 25 votes, Donald Trump polled just 17 votes.

The DFL race was between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Caucus goers spread out around the county by precincts in four separate locations…Hovland, Grand Marais, Gunflint Trail and at Birch Grove Community Center.

Cook County Democrats chose Bernie Sanders with 279 votes to Hillary Clinton’s 183. By precinct, only caucus attendees in Lutsen and Schroeder picked Clinton over Sanders, the remaining 11 went to Sanders.

State-wide Sen. Marco Rubio and Bernie Sanders were the winners. Rubio polled 37% of the GOP vote, Sen. Ted Cruz was second with 29% and Donald Trump had 21% of the vote. Our 8th Congressional District, however went to Cruz, with Rubio third behind Trump. The Rubio votes were largely from the Metro districts and south. Sanders pulled in 60% of the DFL vote to Clinton’s 40% and led in all of Minnesota’s Congressional Districts.

Minnesota bucked the national trend where Trump won seven states, Cruz won four and Minnesota was the only win for Rubio. Clinton swept seven states and Sanders took his home state of Vermont, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Colorado.