Harris and Trump continue to have a tight race in Minnesota

by Ana Radelat, MinnPost
October 28, 2024

WASHINGTON – Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump remain in a tight race in Minnesota, with few undecided voters remaining who could support either candidate.

A new MinnPost-Embold Research poll showed Harris with a slight lead over Trump, 48% to 45%, in the state, a result that was virtually unchanged from Harris' 49% to 45% lead last month in a similar poll . Both results were within the poll's margin of error of 2.4 percentage points.

One reason there's no movement among Minnesota's likely voters? Very few undecided voters remain this late in the campaign cycle; Only 2% of respondents said they were undecided, compared to 3% last month.

“Between September and October, the numbers are essentially flat,” said Embold Research pollster Jessica Mason.

Five percent of respondents said they plan to vote for someone other than Harris or Trump.

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The poll also showed independents preferred Trump over Harris by 36%-27%. Another 24% of these independent voters said they would prefer “another candidate.”

Meanwhile, the poll found a significant change in Senator JD Vance's popularity rating. In September, his dislike rating was minus 16%, meaning more respondents had a “very unfavorable” or “somewhat unfavorable” opinion of Trump's running mate than had a positive opinion.

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However, in the most recent MinnPost Embold survey, this negative rating was halved – to minus 8%.

Mason said Vance's rise in popularity was at least partly due to his Oct. 1 debate with Gov. Tim Walz. Mason said the vice presidential debate, marked by its civility, “presented Vance's face to voters” and introduced him to the nation in a positive way.

Snap polls conducted immediately after the debate, including a CBS/YouGov poll of respondents watching the debate, showed both candidates gaining favor – although more viewers still rated Walz more highly than Vance.

Walz's favor “gives Harris a small boost”

The latest MinnPost-Embold Research poll also showed there is little movement in the popularity of other candidates leading the Democratic and Republican candidates this year. And again, only one candidate, Walz, had a positive popularity rating of 2%. Harris and Trump continued to have negative favorability ratings.

Harris' unfavorable rating was minus 5%, Trump's was minus 11%.

Steven Schier, professor emeritus of political science at Carleton College, said Walz's high popularity rating “likely translates into a small boost” for Harris.

And Schier said Trump's unfavorable rating, which is more than double that of Harris, hurts him.

“Trump has never been very popular in Minnesota,” he said.

In 2016, Minnesota GOP presidential voters favored Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. Additionally, no Republican presidential candidate has won Minnesota since Richard Nixon in 1972.

Nevertheless, Schier said: “We have a very close race here.”

The lack of substantive movement in Minnesota's presidential race is reflected in statewide polls and in polls in swing states that will likely decide the Nov. 5 election. FiveThirtyEight's latest average of national polls shows Harris with a slim 48% to 46.6% lead over Trump, with little change in the head-to-head nature of this race over several weeks.

Schier also said small shifts in presidential election polls were the result of “normal errors in poll research.”

The MinnPost-Embold Research poll surveyed 1,734 likely 2024 Minnesota voters between Oct. 16 and Oct. 22. The margin of error is plus/minus 2.4 percentage points.

A gender chasm

A large gender gap remains in the presidential election campaign.

The latest MinnPost-Embold poll showed Harris up 13 percentage points among women and Trump up 12 percentage points among men.

“It’s not a gap, it’s a canyon,” Schier said.

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The professor also said that “the plans for men and women are different,” which leads to different levels of support for candidates.

According to the survey, 26% of men said abortion was a top concern, while 42% of women said abortion was a top concern. And when it comes to inflation, 69% of men said it was a top concern, compared to 53% of women.

The geographic divide in Minnesota may be even greater. Respondents in Greater Minnesota overwhelmingly said they supported Trump over Harris (64-31%). The answer was the opposite in Minneapolis and St. Paul, where Harris was preferred 69-20%. In the seven-county metro area (excluding Minneapolis and St. Paul), Harris held a slim 48% to 45% lead over Trump.

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One advantage for Harris: 19% of respondents said they had already voted – the vast majority for her. Of those early voters in Minnesota, 70% said they voted for Harris, while just 27% said they voted for Trump.

Schier said strong early voting for Harris means “putting your vote in the bank early and not depending on the weather and turnout on Election Day – and that's a big advantage.”

According to the Minnesota Department of State, as of October 24, 565,909 Minnesotans had voted. But that's about half of the roughly 1.2 million early ballots that had been submitted at this point in 2020, when the pandemic kept many from public voting locations.

Schier also said Harris has another advantage — a strong Democratic ground game in the state. “The DFL is in a better position to attract voters on election day,” he said.

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