MINNEAPOLIS – Ohio Sen. JD Vance, the Republican candidate for vice president, laid out a dark narrative of people fleeing Minneapolis while in the City of Lakes this week, saying American cities across the nation would meet the same fate if Kamala Harris is elected president.
But data shows the city has been recognized for its high quality of life and that its population is growing.
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Vance, in town for a fundraiser for his Republican running mate, former President Donald Trump, made an appearance outside the abandoned 3rd Precinct police headquarters.
The police precinct building was burned by George Floyd rioters after Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers in 2020. The city now is deciding what to do with the idle structure.
Minnesota is home to Vice President Kamala Harris’ Democratic running mate, Gov. Tim Walz. The Trump campaign has criticized Walz for his handling of the rioting in the wake of Floyd’s murder.
Vance, in August, accused Walz of allowing “rioters to burn down the streets of Minneapolis.”
But at the time in 2020, Trump expressed support for Walz’s handling of the protests, a recording of a phone call obtained by ABC News showed. Trump said then that Walz “dominated,” and praising his leadership as an example for other states to follow.
This week, Vance used the precinct building as a backdrop while he suggested crime in the city is prompting people to flee.
“A lot of people feel like it’s easier to move out of Minneapolis than to build a life here,” Vance said. “The story of Minneapolis is coming to every community across the United States of America if we promote Kamala Harris to President of the United States.”
Vance said he and Trump represent the law-and-order ticket.
“The message is very simple,” Vance said. “Do we want the kind of leader who stands with the law enforcement, who fights for them, who protects their lives as they go about keeping us safe, or do we want someone who encourages rioters and looters to burn down this precinct?”
But the notion of Minneapolis in decline brought pushback from the mayor, who posted video of his own while running around one of the many lakes in the city.
“Hey. JD Vance. I saw you were in town but you never said hello,” Mayor Jacob Frey says in his video. “You got a couple of things wrong. You called Minneapolis a city in decline. Here’s the thing. We were rated as the happiest city in the entire country. We’re rated as having the best park system in the entire country.
“We’re a great place for recent college grads. The downtown is coming back,” Frey says. “Guess what else. The last several years, crime has been dropping.”
The London-based Institute for Quality of Life recently released its index of happiest cities for 2024 and Minneapolis was tops in the United States.
In May, the Trust for Public land rated Minneapolis second and St. Paul third in its annual ParkScore ratings. The Twin Cities were behind only Washington, D.C.
Since George Floyd‘s murder and the rioting that burned the precinct building, Minneapolis’ population has actually grown.
Data from the Minnesota State Demographic Center shows that the population of Minneapolis has increased since George Floyd’s death, from 429,956 in 2020 to 433,633 in 2023, the most recent year for statistics.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis reports that the number of people moving in and out of the city is largely unchanged since 2016, CBS News reported.
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Cleveland.com is closely tracking JD Vance’s every move and the reactions he provokes, as he becomes the first Ohioan in 80 years to appear on a presidential ticket for either major party. The coverage of JD Vance aims to provide a daily snapshot of the buzz surrounding him, capturing what he says, what he does, and what others are saying about him.
