For Pawlenty, defeat in Minnesota in a party dominated by Trump

Long before Donald Trump was a prominent presidential candidate, Tim Pawlenty outlined a new course for a Republican Party that he believed was too identified with privilege and elitism. The party, he said, needed to be more “Sam’s Club” and less country club. Trump ultimately made good on that idea, and in the end, Pawlenty was taken down by the change.

Pawlenty was the wrong candidate in the wrong year, a misplaced establishment Republican turned Washington lobbyist who tried to shoehorn himself into the party of Trump on what turned out to be a misguided mission. He went down to defeat in what is likely to be the once Minnesota governor’s last run for public office.

Pawlenty’s loss in Tuesday’s gubernatorial primary in Minnesota was one of the most stunning upsets of the 2018 cycle — on a par with the defeat of Democratic Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.), who lost to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the phenom who has become a star attraction on the progressive left. Crowley’s fall was a result of neglect and being out of step with a changing House district. Pawlenty was defeated in part by being out of step with the party of Trump.

In the gubernatorial primary, the former two-term governor was the heavy favorite, based on traditional metrics like name identification and money. Instead, he lost decisively to Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Johnson, who was both more conservative, more tied to the party’s grass roots and seemingly more Trumpian, which appears to count for nearly everything in GOP politics these days.

Pawlenty can be a shrewd analyst of politics. He can size up other candidates and campaigns with common sense and sometimes brutal candor, at least in private. But those instincts are far from perfect. Tactical and strategic missteps proved costly when he ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. In this fraught year for Republicans generally, he made what proved to be another major miscalculation. It cost him not just the party’s nomination but a piece of his legacy after making his mark as governor.