Minnesota Democratic Party

{{about|the historical Minnesota Democratic Party|the modern party|Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party}}

{{Infobox political party

| colorcode = {{party color|Democratic Party (United States)}}

| foundation = {{Start date|1849}}

| dissolution = {{End date|1944}}

| merged = Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party

| ideology = Liberalism{{cite book |last=Delton |first=Jennifer Alice |date=2002 |title=Making Minnesota Liberal: Civil Rights and the Transformation of the Democratic Party |url=https://books.google.com/books/about/Making_Minnesota_Liberal.html?id=aH_6euMaLtkC |location=MN |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |page=9 |isbn=0816639221 |access-date=2025-05-14 |quote=The Farmer-Labor party’s resolution for amalgamation of the “Liberal Forces” in Minnesota to form the “Farmer-Labor-Democrat party” highlighted concerns about the war and the postwar peace process.}}

| position = Center-left{{cite web |last=Greeley |first=Patrick |date=2024-11-11 |title=The Rise and Fall of Midwest Populism |url=https://jacobin.com/2024/11/minnesota-dfl-midwest-populism-walz |website=Jacobin.com |publisher=Jacobin |access-date=2025-03-21 |quote=After bitter losses for both parties in 1942, state Democratic chair Elmer Kelm publicly expressed interest in a merger. Early the following year, he drafted a memo to the national committee, suggesting that President Roosevelt’s odds of winning Minnesota’s electoral votes were at risk without a unified left-of-center front. […] The FLP for was not opposed to the idea. Leaders reasoned that it made little sense for two left-leaning minority parties to continue struggling with one another with little chance of overcoming their Republican opponents in the near term.}}

| national = Democratic Party

| colors =

| state = Minnesota

}}

The Minnesota Democratic Party was a political party in Minnesota that existed from the formation of Minnesota Territory in 1849 until 1944, when the party merged with the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party to form the modern Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

In the first two years after Minnesota's admission into the Union in 1858, the Minnesota Democratic Party was briefly the dominant party in the state; however, the 1860 presidential election and the Civil War dealt a devastating blow to the party from which it never really recovered. Between 1860 and 1918, the Minnesota Democratic Party was a distant second party to the dominant Republican Party. During that period, Democrats held the office of Governor of Minnesota for a grand total of seven years, never controlled either chamber of the Minnesota Legislature, and Minnesota never cast a single electoral vote in favor of a Democratic presidential nominee.

Following the establishment of the Farmer-Labor Party in 1918, the Minnesota Democratic Party was relegated to third party status, as the Farmer-Laborites became the primary opposition to the Republicans. During the 1930s, a political alliance between Minnesota Governor Floyd B. Olson and President Franklin D. Roosevelt bred closer cooperation between the Farmer-Laborites and the Democrats. With a large backing from Farmer-Laborites, Roosevelt became the first Democrat ever to win Minnesota's electoral votes in 1932, and went on to win the state in each of his re-election bids. In the 1936 gubernatorial election the Democratic Party opted not to run its own candidate for Governor, endorsing Farmer-Labor candidate Elmer Austin Benson instead.

After the Farmer-Laborites' spectacular fall from power in the 1938 general election, there was increasing pressure from the national Democratic Party for a merger between the Minnesota Democratic Party and the Farmer-Labor Party. In spite of substantial minorities in both parties continuing to oppose merging, the majority in the Farmer-Labor Party led by former Governor Benson and the slim majority of the Minnesota Democratic Party led by future Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey ultimately concluded such a merger in 1944, creating the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.