By Steven Schier
Both the Minnesota Twins and state of Minnesota have seen better days. They share four ominous traits that do not portend a bright future. Consider the following.
First, a distant, golden past. There was a time when the Twins were the top of the baseball world—world champions twice in the five years between 1987 and 1991. This led to great national publicity and booming ballpark attendance, even in the dubious Metrodome. But in the past twenty-plus years, the Twins have won only one playoff series. In 2026, various prognosticators predict the Twins to win between 76 and 83 games—at best, a .500 team unlikely to make the playoffs yet again.
Older Minnesotans will remember the state’s TIME magazine cover touting “the good life in Minnesota.” In 1983, The Book of America, a survey of each of the fifty states, labeled Minnesota “the successful society.”
Since 2020, the state has been the conspicuous recipient of all sorts of bad news. First, the death of George Floyd and riots costing the metro area between $1 billion and $2 billion in property damage. Then there is the problem of epic fraud in multiple state government programs, estimated by former assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson at $9 billion and affecting at least fourteen programs. Then there is the bitter controversy about ICE enforcement actions, resulting in two deaths.
Second, bad management. Of course, the Twins’ won/loss record in recent years speaks for itself, but the most recent example of bad management is the destruction of a playoff team in 2023 to a 92-loss team in 2025. Accompanying this was turmoil and uncertainty about which Pohlad would guide the team and whether the owners would sell the team. A new general manager, Jeremy Zoll, also surprisingly arrived.
Meanwhile, the Twins spent almost twenty percent of their payroll on pitcher Pablo Lopez, who in 2025 and 2026 will have appeared in only fourteen games.
Governmental bad management in Minnesota stretches back decades but reached huge proportions in the last few years. David Schultz, in an excellent analysis in the Minneapolis Times, notes how both parties contributed to the problem. Republicans’ desire to privatize service delivery, coupled with lax oversight, produced performance problems. Those problems metastasized in recent years under DFL rule, leading to billions in lost funds.
This produces the awkward situation in which the 2026 DFL candidate for governor, Amy Klobuchar, must adopt the following campaign slogan: “I had nothing to do with that.”
Third, declining performance. For the Twins, that is evident in both a low, noncompetitive payroll, poor free agent signings, and a farm system high on promise yet slow to deliver a large dose of much-needed talent. And that won/loss record.
Decline in state policy performance appears in important measures. Despite spending 33 percent more per pupil than the state of Mississippi, Black and Hispanic students in Minnesota perform more poorly on several reading and math tests than do Mississippi students. Who ever thought that would happen?
When Tim Walz ran for Vice President, Reuters reported that Minnesota since 2020 lagged well behind the national averages for economic growth (11.5 percent to 6.2 percent) and job growth (5.8 percent to 0.5 percent). A recent report from the state auditor indicates Minnesota’s towns and cities are facing a big fiscal crunch due to declining revenues and rising costs. Property taxes have shot upward. And then there is all that money lost to fraud.
Fourth, suffering reputations. Back in the 1990s, the Twins had a reputation as a model MLB franchise that budgeted well and developed a stream of quality talent through their minor league system. Mike Petriello on the MLB.com website recently rated the Twins at the bottom of the pack with the Los Angeles Angels, listing the teams’ problem as “What is the path forward?”
A similar question besets Minnesota government. Mired in fraud, declining state performance in education and important economic indicators, bitter partisan divisions, and subject to a wave of bad national publicity, what is the path forward?
Steven Schier is the emeritus Congdon Professor of Political Science at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota.
Schier identifies a number of important concerns, e.g., Minnesota’s poor educational performance in some measures, lagging economic indicators and how privatization of social delivery has made oversight more challenging. However, I will point out that Minnesota’s “metastasized” fraud is 1) a significant concern, 2) no greater than that in other states, 3) being dealt with by the administration and, hopefully, legislature and 4) the “hot” issue it is due largely because the Trump administration has used it as a political cudgel. So, in some ways, Minnesota is ahead of the curve in dealing with fraud and the system is working. However, I believe this could have happened without the lies and vitriol. Call me Pollyanna.
Why would anyone want to go to Minneapolis to see substandard baseball?