Austin, MN is a small city of approximately 24,000 people located in Mower County. In the small community of Austin politics remain an important part of everyday life and its citizens take pride in their active involvement in local government decisions. The city is served by a mayor and five council members who are elected every two years. The current mayor is Tom Stiehm who has been in office since 2016 and the current council members are Jeff Cox, Mark Gieseke, LeRoy Severson, Diane McCallum and John Rieken. These individuals are all responsible for representing the needs of Austin's citizens while advocating for the city's best interests as a whole. Residents of Austin can become involved with their local politics by attending meetings, joining committees or showing up to vote during election cycles.
The political climate in Zip 55912 (Austin, MN) is leaning conservative.
Mower County, MN is leaning conservative. In Mower County, MN 46.0% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 51.8% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 2.2% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, Mower county remained moderately Republican, 51.8% to 46.0%.
Mower county voted Republican in the two most recent Presidential elections, after voting Democratic in the previous four.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
Zip 55912 (Austin, MN) is leaning conservative.
Austin, Minnesota is leaning conservative.
Mower County, Minnesota is leaning conservative.
Austin Metro Area is leaning conservative.
Minnesota is leaning liberal.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index is based on recent voting in national elections, federal campaign contributions by local residents, and consumer personality profiles.
VoteWord™
Displaying 20 years of Presidential voting, visualized in one word.
Austin, Minnesota: D D D D r r
How It Works:
Here at BestPlaces, we were looking at the voting patterns since the 2000 election and realized that we could express the results of each election as one letter. R if the Republican Party candidate won, D for the Democrat and I for the Independent. The six elections (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) would be expressed as six-letter word (R R D R R).
Then we went a little further and added the dimension of magnitude. If the difference of victory was greater than 10 percent, the letter is upper case, and lower case if the difference was less than 10 percent. This allows us to see interesting voting patterns at just a glance.
Here's the VoteWord for Iowa d r d d r. In the last six elections the state has been closely contested, voting narrowly for the Republican Party candidate in 2016 and 2020 after voting for the Democratic Party in 2008 and 2012. Virginia (r r d d d D) has voted for the Democratic Party in the last three elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in zip 55912 (Austin)
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 373 contributions totaling $23,324 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $63 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 109 contributions totaling $24,615 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $226 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)