St. Cloud, Minnesota is the county seat of Stearns County and the largest city in central Minnesota, with a population of about 68,000 people. The politics in this area are influenced by both state and local government entities. At the state level, St. Cloud is represented by two senators and three members of the House of Representatives who are all part of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) party. Locally, residents elect a mayor and six council members to form the City Council that governs St. Cloud. This council is responsible for setting policy on issues such as public safety, infrastructure improvements, economic development, health care access, housing availability and other city initiatives. Elections for these positions take place every four years or as needed to fill vacancies. In recent elections there has been strong voter turnout from citizens who value their voice in local politics and want to make sure their voices are heard at the ballot box.
The political climate in Zip 56301 (St. Cloud, MN) is somewhat conservative.
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
Zip 56301 (St. Cloud, MN) is somewhat conservative.
St. Cloud, Minnesota is somewhat conservative.
Stearns County, Minnesota 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.
St. Cloud, 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 zip 56301 (St. Cloud)
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 504 contributions totaling $49,426 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $98 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 313 contributions totaling $388,153 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $1,240 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)