For White, it’s a whole different story. White underperformed Trump and his Republican colleagues, by a significant margin. In 86 counties, Trump outperformed whites by an average of 8.7 points. White’s support among Republicans is even lower than that of his congressional counterparts, with White trailing these Republican candidates by an average of 11.6 points per county. White’s biggest Republican voter losses were not in highly populated counties, but in rural areas like Houston County, where White trailed Rep. Brad Finstad by 20 points and Trump by 16.5 points.

Although detractors claim these are just anecdotes, the Trump/Klobuchar counties also highlight our failures as a party. Scott and Carver counties, where Action for Liberty’s presence is growing and largely supported White’s candidacy in the pre-primary, saw White lose to Klobuchar in GOP-leaning areas that Trump won. Meanwhile, Republicans, with the exception of White, managed to succeed in counties like Anoka, Blue Earth, Nicollet, Beltrami and Winona. Furthermore, while White may claim this is the closest a Republican has come to defeating Klobuchar, we must remember that this is the first time Republicans have run against Klobuchar in a presidential year when the winds were in favor of the Republican Party. In 2006, Klobuchar’s first victory came at the height of the anti-war movement that saw George W. Bush’s approval numbers plummet. In 2012, Klobuchar ran with a popular Barack Obama in office and a campaign that invested in states across the country. And 2018 marked a blue wave in Donald Trump’s first midterm – historically a huge loss for the ruling party.

Ultimately, these trends — which only existed in this year’s U.S. Senate race — occurred without negative publicity against whites and minimal funds spent by Klobuchar to run a campaign against Republicans.

The reality is simple: When given the choice between White and Klobuchar, Minnesotans chose to skip the question entirely or hold their noses and vote Democratic.

While the whites continue to plot with a post-election announcement This could cost Minnesota Republicans a potential victory in 2026, we need to do better. In 2024, Republicans chose Royce White, an ineligible candidate. Then, Republicans rejected the ineligible candidate while voting for President Trump and other rejected Republican candidates. As we look to 2026 – when Tim Walz, Tina Smith, Keith Ellison and others will be on the ballot – we have a duty to Minnesotans and to ourselves not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Preya Samsundar is a GOP communications consultant at K2 & Company. She has worked for Nikki Haley’s presidential super PAC, the Republican National Committee, President Donald Trump and other Republican candidates across the country. She lives in Burnsville.