Stearns County in Minnesota is a vibrant and diverse area known for its beautiful landscape, rich history, and strong sense of community. It is also home to a vibrant political scene with numerous local candidates vying for office. Most notably, the Stearns County Board of Commissioners has seven members representing their constituents in several areas including finance, public health, the environment, economic development, and public safety. The board works hard to ensure that all citizens are represented fairly while striving to maintain fiscal responsibility and make decisions that positively impact the county. Each commissioner is elected by district voters every two years and takes part in making policy matters and setting the overall direction of the county government. There are also a number of local candidates vying for mayor or city council positions within Stearns County who are actively engaging their communities and making their voices heard through robust campaigns focused on issues such as education, infrastructure improvements and affordable housing initiatives.
The political climate in Stearns County, MN is moderately conservative.
In Stearns County, MN 37.6% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 60.1% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 2.4% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, Stearns county remained overwhelmingly Republican, 60.1% to 37.6%.
Stearns county voted Republican in every Presidential election since 2000.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
Stearns County, MN is moderately conservative.
St. Cloud Metro Area is strongly conservative.
Minnesota is leaning liberal.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index is based on recent voting in national elections, federal campaign contributions by local residents, and consumer personality profiles.
VoteWord™
Displaying 20 years of Presidential voting, visualized in one word.
Stearns, Minnesota: R R r R R R
How It Works:
Here at BestPlaces, we were looking at the voting patterns since the 2000 election and realized that we could express the results of each election as one letter. R if the Republican Party candidate won, D for the Democrat and I for the Independent. The six elections (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) would be expressed as six-letter word (R R D R R).
Then we went a little further and added the dimension of magnitude. If the difference of victory was greater than 10 percent, the letter is upper case, and lower case if the difference was less than 10 percent. This allows us to see interesting voting patterns at just a glance.
Here's the VoteWord for Iowa d r d d r. In the last six elections the state has been closely contested, voting narrowly for the Republican Party candidate in 2016 and 2020 after voting for the Democratic Party in 2008 and 2012. Virginia (r r d d d D) has voted for the Democratic Party in the last three elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in Stearns County, MN
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 3,322 contributions totaling $169,490 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $51 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 1,364 contributions totaling $634,596 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $465 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)