MinnPost today is publishing its first scientific-sample poll, capturing Minnesotans’ attitudes about the recent state government shutdown and who is to blame.

News polling is expensive, and not something MinnPost can routinely afford. But we decided to do this post-shutdown poll because we thought it was important to know how the public views this major event in retrospect, which could have a lot of impact on the next round of legislative elections.

And no other news organization did it, so we decided to fill the gap.

Our pollster, Rob Daves of Daves & Associates Research, donated his professional services and we are sincerely grateful for his contribution to help us get this story out.  But we still incurred nearly $10,000 in expenses to field the survey.  

Now here is how you, the reader, can contribute, too. If you believe this kind of polling is important to our state, please make a donation to MinnPost to help cover the costs of this work, so we don’t have to take the money away from other news spending. Any amount from $5 to $500 or more is greatly appreciated.

Joel Kramer is CEO and editor of MinnPost.com.