By REBEKA ZELJKO (Daily Caller News Foundation)
Former President Donald Trump is closing in on President Joe Biden in Minnesota, a state that hasn’t voted for a Republican president in over 50 years, according to several recent polls.
Trump is tied with Biden at 45% in Minnesota, according to an Emerson College Polling/The Hill poll released earlier this week, while other recent polls have shown him within the margin of error in the historically Democratic state. The last time the North Star State voted for a Republican candidate was in 1972 for former President Richard Nixon.
“While Minnesota hasn’t voted Republican at the presidential level in a long time, it was decided by fewer than 45,000 votes in 2016, and by fewer than 100,000 votes in 2004,” Jon McHenry, GOP polling analyst and vice president at North Star Opinion Research, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “It’s certainly in play this time around.”
Other polls have Biden leading in Minnesota, but by an increasingly narrow margin. Biden was shown leading Trump by four points, according to Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy findings from June. In May, Biden was also leading in Minnesota by a slim two point margin, according to a KSTP/SurveyUSA poll.
In 2020, Biden won Minnesota with a 7.2% margin, which was on track with historical trends. In 2016, former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton won the state with a 1.5% margin. Former President Barack Obama also won Minnesota in 2012 and 2008, with a 7.7% and 10.2% margin, respectively.
“The reason Donald Trump can run so close in Minnesota is the general level of dissatisfaction with Joe Biden’s presidency, especially in his handling of the economy and illegal immigration,” McHenry told DCNF. “Unless voters change their minds about the economy, states that narrowly voted for President Biden in 2020 are going to flip, and states that gave him a more solid margin like Minnesota are going to be very close.”
Trump and Biden were also tied in Virginia, according to a Roanoke College Poll, which has not voted for a Republican since former President George W. Bush in 2004.
According to RealClearPolitics polling averages, Trump currently leads in all swing states.
Trump is leading in Arizona by 4.6 points and in Nevada by 5.7 points. In the Rust Belt, Trump is leading in Wisconsin by 0.3 points, in Michigan by 0.2 points and in Pennsylvania by 2.3 points. In the South, Trump is leading in North Carolina by 5.3 points and in Georgia by 5 points.
“In the swing states we’ve polled, majorities of voters say they were better off financially under Donald Trump, so the Trump campaign is probably three-quarters of the way there,” McHenry told the DCNF.
In a five-way race with Trump, Biden, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent candidate Cornel West, Trump’s odds improve, including in Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia, according to RealClearPolitics averages.
The Emerson College Polling/The Hill poll sampled 1,000 registered voters from Jun. 13 through Jun. 18 with a margin of error of 3%.
