In the first two years after Minnesota's admission into the Union in 1858, the Minnesota Democratic Party was briefly the dominant party in the state; however, the 1860 presidential election and the Civil War dealt a devastating blow to the party from which it never really recovered. Between 1860 and 1918, the Minnesota Democratic Party was a distant second party to the dominant Republican Party. During that period, Democrats held the office of Governor of Minnesota for a grand total of seven years, never controlled either chamber of the Minnesota Legislature, and Minnesota never cast a single electoral vote in favor of a Democratic presidential nominee.
Following the establishment of the Farmer-Labor Party in 1918, the Minnesota Democratic Party was relegated to third party status, as the Farmer-Laborites became the primary opposition to the Republicans. During the 1930s, a political alliance between Minnesota Governor Floyd B. Olson and PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt bred closer cooperation between the Farmer-Laborites and the Democrats. With a large backing from Farmer-Laborites, Roosevelt became the first Democrat ever to win Minnesota's electoral votes in 1932, and went on to win the state in each of his re-election bids. In the 1936 gubernatorial election the Democratic Party opted not to run its own candidate for Governor, endorsing Farmer-Labor candidate Elmer Austin Benson instead.
After the Farmer-Laborites' spectacular fall from power in the 1938 general election, there was increasing pressure from the national Democratic Party for a merger between the Minnesota Democratic Party and the Farmer-Labor Party. In spite of substantial minorities in both parties continuing to oppose merging, the majority in the Farmer-Labor Party led by former Governor Benson and the slim majority of the Minnesota Democratic Party led by future Vice PresidentHubert H. Humphrey ultimately concluded such a merger in 1944, creating the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.
↑ In each of his three appearances on the general election ballot for Governor, John Lind ran at the head of a coalition consisting of the Democratic Party, the Silver Republican Party, and the majority faction of the People's Party, and his party affiliation is listed as "P/DSR" (Populist/Democratic Silver Republican) in the list of Minnesota Governors compiled by the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library.
↑ In 1936, the Democratic Party did not field a gubernatorial nominee, instead opting to support Farmer-Labor nominee Elmer Austin Benson.
↑ Greeley, Patrick (2024-11-11). "The Rise and Fall of Midwest Populism". Jacobin.com. Jacobin. Retrieved 2025-03-21. After bitter losses for both parties in 1942, state Democratic chair Elmer Kelm publicly expressed interest in a merger. Early the following year, he drafted a memo to the national committee, suggesting that President Roosevelt's odds of winning Minnesota's electoral votes were at risk without a unified left-of-center front. […] The FLP for was not opposed to the idea. Leaders reasoned that it made little sense for two left-leaning minority parties to continue struggling with one another with little chance of overcoming their Republican opponents in the near term.
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