Donald Trump’s federal crackdown on Minnesota wasn’t some sudden law-and-order epiphany. It was personal. And according to reporting from HuffPost and multiple other outlets, it traces straight back to Trump’s fixation on an election he keeps lying about winning.
Trump never carried Minnesota. Not in 2016. Not in 2020. Not in 2024. But he’s been insisting otherwise for years — and political insiders say that fantasy helps explain why his administration flooded Minneapolis with ICE and Border Patrol agents, despite the state having a relatively small undocumented population.
“It’s hard to imagine that election denial did not motivate his animus, at least in part, that resulted in the ICE surge and the tragedies that followed,” said Norm Eisen, a former Obama White House lawyer. “The whole thing is a witch’s brew of falsehoods.”
The White House hasn’t even tried to fully deny the payback angle. When asked whether the crackdown amounted to the “retribution” Trump had promised Minnesota, officials dodged, with spokesperson Abigail Jackson claiming the administration was simply focused on “totally accurate and up-to-date voter rolls.”
That explanation rings hollow when stacked against Trump’s own words.
“I thought we won in 2016,” Trump told Minnesota Republicans in May 2024. “I know we won it 2020.”
He later escalated the claim, declaring: “I feel that I won Minnesota. I think I won it all three times… That’s a crooked state.”
On Jan. 13, Trump posted that Minnesota’s “DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION” was coming. Days later, it did.
As Reuters and CBS News documented, federal agents poured into Minneapolis amid protests, shootings, and mounting public anger. Two U.S. citizens were killed in incidents connected to the operation. Local officials were sidelined. Community trust cratered.
Then came the leverage.
Attorney General Pam Bondi demanded Minnesota turn over its voter data — including statewide voter rolls — in exchange for pulling federal agents back. The Guardian reported that the request sparked outrage among state officials and civil-rights advocates, who saw it as coercion dressed up as election security.
“Minnesota voters rejected Donald Trump three times, a fact that he either willingly ignores or his addled, aging brain can’t remember,” said Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin. He tied Trump’s false election claims directly to what he called “aggressive and unlawful ICE tactics.”
Election lawyer Marc Elias, who is fighting the administration’s voter-data demands in court, was even blunter.
“He’s obsessed with Minnesota because he cannot believe that an overwhelmingly white state in that part of the country didn’t vote for him,” Elias said. “And so he’s going to punish them.”
Elias warned that obtaining unredacted voter files would give Trump’s Justice Department the raw material needed to target voters and manufacture fraud claims ahead of the midterms — a concern echoed by Democratic lawmakers and voting-rights groups.
Trump’s behavior fits a pattern. He claimed millions of illegal votes cost him the popular vote. Launched a voter-fraud task force that collapsed after finding nothing. And now, he’s using federal power to chase the same lie — again.
Former Pence aide Marc Short said Trump may not even believe his own claims, but he knows they work.
“He’s going to keep saying that,” Short said, “because it’s hard to argue that he hasn’t been effective at changing people’s minds about stolen elections.”
Minnesota just happens to be the latest target.
