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Voters in the Twin Cities metro area and voters in Greater Minnesota are sharply divided on most pressing issues facing the state, including the presidential contest and views on Gov. Tim Walz’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a MinnPost poll conducted by Change Research.
While former Vice President Joe Biden leads President Donald Trump by a 49 to 44 margin in the online poll of 1,021 likely voters conducted from Oct. 12 to Oct. 15, voters outside the seven-county Twin Cities metro favor the president by a 54 to 40 margin.
The poll found 85 percent of likely voters in Minneapolis and St. Paul prefer Biden to Trump, but the race is closer in the metro area suburbs — the seven-county metro excluding Minneapolis and St. Paul. There, 48 percent of likely voters favor Biden while 45 percent prefer Trump. The margin of error for statewide results is 3.1 percentage points but is larger when results are broken into smaller categories such as results by region. Crosstabs can be found here.
Trump’s standing in Greater Minnesota
Overall, Trump’s standing appears strong in Greater Minnesota. The poll found 54 percent of likely voters outside of the seven-county Twin Cities metro have a very or somewhat favorable view of Trump while only 36 percent held a favorable view of Biden.
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The poll found 57 percent of likely voters in Greater Minnesota believe Trump would do a better job on trade policy and 60 percent of likely voters outside the metro believe the president has done a good or excellent job supporting farmers in the state. The poll also found 59 percent of likely voters in Greater Minnesota believe Trump has done a good or excellent job handling mining issues in Minnesota.
Likely voters in Greater Minnesota and the Twin Cities suburbs picked the economy and jobs, as well as crime and public safety, as the top two issues factoring into their votes, though health care and drug costs rated a close third.
What’s striking about the results is how tightly people’s views match their partisan identity, said Tim Lindberg, assistant professor of political science at the University of Minnesota Morris: Republicans and Republican-heavy areas think Trump is doing a good job and agree with him on policy. Democrats and Democrat-heavy areas think Trump is doing a bad job and agree with Biden on policy.
For example, the poll found people in Greater Minnesota think crime and public safety is a bigger issue than people in the metro area, where the summer was marked by protests in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd.
“It’s not surprising that we see that but I think it’s a really clear reflection of how important partisanship has become,” Lindberg said.
Cynthia Rugeley, who leads the political science department at the University of Minnesota Duluth, said many polls this year show a clear difference in how people in Greater Minnesota and people in suburbs and cities view the two candidates. The continued political split between more rural and more urban areas, Rugeley said, speaks to how “place is becoming a political identity now.”
Cities ‘astonishingly lopsided’ in favor of Biden
Trump has tried to juice his numbers in Greater Minnesota during the campaign, making recent stops in Duluth, Bemidji and Mankato and sending surrogates across the state. But he has also run a campaign touting his support for “law and order” targeted at winning over suburban voters.
Even so, the poll found just 36 percent of likely voters in the suburbs have a very favorable view of Trump while 7 percent have a somewhat favorable view. Meanwhile, 52 percent of likely voters in the suburbs have a very unfavorable view of the president. In the Twin Cities, 84 percent of likely voters have a very unfavorable view of Trump.
Fred Slocum, director of the political science program at Minnesota State University, Mankato, said there is support for Trump and some of his policies in Greater Minnesota, but also said support is “not terribly lopsided” there in favor of the president. That’s especially when compared to the president’s marks in the Twin Cities, which Slocum called “astonishingly lopsided” in favor of Biden.
“I think it goes to underline the degree to which Trump has probably built his support among rural whites, because the rural population of Minnesota is very heavily white, but lost ground among suburban residents and especially suburban women and voters with college degrees,” Slocum said.
Biden fared better, but only marginally better, in the suburbs than Trump. The poll found 32 percent of likely voters in the metro area suburbs have a very favorable view of Biden while 15 percent have a somewhat favorable view. The poll found 45 percent of likely voters in those suburbs have a very unfavorable view of Biden.
Trump also appears to be doing slightly worse in the southern half of Minnesota than the northern half of the state, which was also the case in the 2016 election.
[image_credit]REUTERS/Alan Freed[/image_credit][image_caption]The poll found 32 percent of likely voters in the metro area suburbs have a very favorable view of Joe Biden while 15 percent have a somewhat favorable view.[/image_caption]
Rugeley said she would not be surprised if Trump fares better in the northern half of the state, where his tariff policies aimed at boosting the iron ore industry have been broadly popular. She said Trump has been making direct appeals to the region — the president, for instance, has trumpeted support of proposed copper-nickel mining projects and the Line 3 oil pipeline — and the demographics of the area are favorable to the president.
Generally, Trump has done well among white voters, particularly those without college degrees, which Rugeley said is a large demographic in northeast Minnesota. The area was also trending Republican before Trump arrived, while Democrats stayed competitive primarily because of a long history of labor unions in industries like mining, Rugeley said.
Lindberg also said demographics may explain the different partisan dynamics in northern and southern Minnesota. Apart from the Moorhead area, population growth in northern Minnesota is pretty stagnant. Not so with Southern Minnesota, where Rochester and Mankato in particular are growing. And with those newcomers have come more votes for Democrats.
Views on Walz also split
Likely voters are similarly split over Walz, who is two years into his term and not on the ballot in 2020.
The poll found 75 percent of likely voters in Minneapolis and St. Paul have a very favorable or somewhat favorable view of the governor, while only 47 percent of likely voters in the Twin Cities suburbs, and 37 percent of voters in Greater Minnesota have a favorable view of Walz. In Greater Minnesota, 53 percent of likely voters said they hold a very unfavorable view of the governor, while another four percent said they had a somewhat unfavorable view of Walz.
People also split by geography on Walz’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Across the state, 53 percent of likely voters said Walz has done an excellent or good job of responding to the disease.
But the poll found 45 percent of likely voters in Greater Minnesota say Walz has done a poor job of responding to the disease, while another 12 percent of those outside of the metro say his response has been “not so good.” Meanwhile, the poll found 86 percent in Minneapolis and St. Paul rated Walz’s response as excellent or good.
[image_credit]REUTERS/Lucas Jackson[/image_credit][image_caption]The poll found 75 percent of likely voters in Minneapolis and St. Paul have a very favorable or somewhat favorable view of Gov. Tim Walz.[/image_caption]
While a majority of Minneapolis-St. Paul residents said Walz did well responding to the unrest, 62 percent of likely voters in the metro suburbs disliked Walz’s performance and an overwhelming 72 percent of voters in Greater Minnesota said Walz’s response was poor or not so good.
MinnPost staff writer Greta Kaul contributed to this report.
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I would like to see some further work that explains WHY rural white folk are more attracted to Trump than their urban brothers and sisters. I’m looking beyond his lip service to issues such as “law and order,” mining, ethanol, etc. I’m looking for the real, core reasons why Trump looks good to rural Minnesotans, if we can ever get to the honest answers.
I have some theories, but I would like to see some data on this.
Maybe due to the idea that things under Mr. Trump will not change the status quo much and with Mr. Biden the status quo could be changed greatly. I don’t support either candidate but that would be my guess. Mr. Biden has made promises to make major changes to the availability of fossil fuel energy, and semi automatic rifles. He also supports ideas like required training in critical race theory. Maybe I am way off base. It would be good to see some data but honest/accurate data is hard to collect.
If you are dredging up Fox News talking points about critical race theory, you are definitely off base.
Some of my realizations as a resident of Hubbard county in North Central Mn: Many are former Tea Partiers and their offspring; Limited education ; change is bad; religion is good; immigrants are bad; taxes are bad; teachers have it too nice; Fox and sitcoms are good; Documentaries and Public t v , Huh ?
I would like to recommend the following books to you. I haven’t read the third, only a review of it. But it seems to align very well with the previous two.
1. Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland, by Jonathan Metzl.
https://www.dyingofwhiteness.com/
2. Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, by Arlie Russell Hochschild
https://thenewpress.com/books/strangers-their-own-land
3. White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity, by Robert P. Jones
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/White-Too-Long/Robert-P-Jones/9781982122867
In my experience these books only dig partway into the ground. For instance, I spent around 18 months reading articles and interacting with people on breitbart. There I saw calls for genocide against Muslims, frequent anti-gay slurs, conspiracy theories, and the like. I doubt these brutish and malevolent attitudes are the universal GOP norm (few attitudes are), but I do suspect they’re unsettlingly popular among its supporters.
From my experience, it’s mostly an education and intelligence gap. Rural areas have been bleeding talent to the cities since . . . always. You can’t keep losing the smart kids to the city and leaving the dumb ones on the farm and unemployed or barely-employed in the country for generations and not have that have an effect. And the dumber, more intolerant, and move violent the rural areas and small towns get, the less attractive they are to educated people, industry, healthcare providers, teachers, and everyone else who are depended on to make a place livable.
Why do Republicans in Greater Minnesota care so much about public safety, when they have zero problems with it, rather than the pandemic, which is running wild in their communities and threatening their personal livelihoods and the well being of their communities. Do you seriously think Trump is doing anything for you? In Northern Minnesota, you will trade a few mining jobs for a decline in tourism once the water pollution begins. In Southern and Western Minnesota, government subsidies do not fully compensation for ruining international trade due to Trump protectionism of the energy industry. Want your kids and grandkids to be able to live close and have high paying jobs? Republicans aren’t doing that!
If outstate Minnesota voters are going to be so critical of the Metro, can they at least agree that Metro taxpayers don’t have to subsidize them? We work hard down here to keep outstate Minnesota going.
Are you referring to LGA? As I understand it most metro suburbs would not survive without it either. Way to many unfunded liabilities (ie infrastructure).
LGA is a small part of it, but its a lot more than that – schools, roads, etc. The metro pays more in taxes than it receives, while the converse is true for outstate Minnesota. And I would be ok with that if it wasn’t for outstate Republicans criticizing the Metro instead of acknowledging how dependent outstate Minnesota is on the metro.
These numbers are frightening. I don’t think trump will take Minnesota, but *any* support for him suggests incredible bad judgement … failure of educational systems to develop reasoning ability, logic, ethics … in students…. Some hard thinking needed as to how we got where we are and what to do about it.
Nationwide it’s the hicks vs the slicks. I’ve got a nice little beach town here Lebowski, and I aim to keep it that way…
The divide between urban and rural voters has existed for a long time now, and it often seems to me that Republican candidates in particular try to exploit that in order to win votes. There is a tendency to frame issues as us vs. them, with the candidate situated as “one of us”. Unfortunately this creates a cultural imperative to side with “us” no matter what. Trump goes to rural areas and tells people he’s one of them, and apparently they believe him.
Support for Trump in rural Minnesota is puzzling and disheartening to me. I grew up in farm country in the southern part of the state and my interior landscape is still one of dark skies and being close to the land. That’s where I am when I am “home” even though my zip code is in Minneapolis. I’ve lived here for decades because there is much more interesting here – food, people, music, diversity, and a general open mindedness. I walk into a grocery store in my neighborhood and I usually hear at least one other language before I hear English. I see people who were born on other continents and it’s fascinating to me. What stories do their lives have to tell? The young farm boy I was a half century ago, sitting in the all-white Catholic school where the only “ethnic diversity” was the Protestant family who moved into the village, would have been amazed at my journey.
But the intensity and depth of the urban-rural divide is heart-breaking to me. I am urban and I am rural. The current extreme difference between the two creates a division in me that does not need to be there. What are we afraid of, when we see each other? Where is our common ground as citizens of the same good state, a state with good progressive politics and political vibrancy? I want my old rural neighbors to be as invested and interested in the success of my adoptive city as I am invested in the rural area where I grew up, the farming communities around the state and the iron range. Why are we in opposition?
Minneapolis is hurting, but so is the soul of America. This is a wound that has festered too long and needs to be open to the fresh air. In fact it can’t help but be open, because it will not suffer to be covered up again. But voting for Trump will NOT move our state or our country forward. There is not a better America in the past to be reclaimed, if you are to believe the MAGA caps. A better America is at hand and it is in the future, soon to be dawning. It will require a lot of work. But it’s forward we go, my friends, not backwards. We need tolerance, we need patience, we need to be slow in our judgments, but mostly we have to listen to each other.
I wonder if Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of needs’ might help explain out-state citizens’ desperate support of Trump(ism).
While the metro areas and university centres enjoy relative economic security and future promise, northern regions of Minnesota, dependent upon natural resource extraction, are concerned with their survival. Often equipped with limited educational attainment, workers in such areas appear willing to sacrifice many traditional values, along with the environment, in the mistaken view that this is the way to assure their economic futures. One reality remains evident: Trump(ism) is NOT the answer. Re-training, flexibility, investment in sustainable industry, emphasis on protecting the natural environment, and working toward greater inclusion of people of all colors and cultures may help illuminate the path toward a more secure lifestyle up North.
Even during my long-ago childhood and teen years, I noticed that some people we met on our trips “up North” were afraid of the Cities and seemed almost proud of never having visited them.
I’m sure that forty years of AM hate radio, along with TV news and entertainment programming that emphasizes sensationalism, have created a crudely distorted picture of life in the metro area for the people who are afraid to come here. In fact, you don’t have to go very far into the suburbs to find people who are certain that they would never survive a trip to downtown Minneapolis.
Reports of shootings in downtown Minneapolis (someone arguing over a drug deal at 3:00am) only reinforce their fears.
I’m sure such people imagine that we city dwellers spend our evenings hunkered down behind triple-locked doors and staying away from windows. More recently, they probably picture us searching the rubble for scraps of food and being chased through the streets by crazed antifa types.
Back when George W. Bush was running for president the second time, a woman in Minnetonka was interviewed by the Strib, and she said that she was voting for Bush because the incident in which Chechen terrorists had invaded a school in Russia had made her fear for her children’s safety.
That’s right. She was afraid of terrorists invading her child’s school in Minnetonka.
I was reminded of the old fairy tale about The Three Sillies. (It’s available online.)
I agree for the most part. And as much as people want to dog the cities; where do they then send their relatives who need a job, drug treatment, can’t find housing or need good medical care? Yet let’s also acknowledge we do have crime issues(although why is it when NE Minnesota has a major drug bust you don’t see alot of comments about not wanting to go there). The crime in the city tends to be more random which makes if more frightening and less controlled(school shootings are usually the suburbs but more rare). Living in Linden Hills is different than living in some neighborhoods on the north side in Mpls.. People often fear what they don’t know or when things are complicated. And many politicians do like to stress the divide.
I live in Lake County and it is unsettling for me and others in this area to be labeled “northern Greater Minnesota”. Where we all are uneducated and love Trump. Northern Minnesota is divided into two Congressional Districts and I have lived in both. In District 8 when Collin Peterson was first elected and in District 8 when Oberstar was defeated, Cravack came in for one term, Nolan was elected, and Stauber won the seat last time. In our area, although we have low population density, we are traditionally very serious about voting (usually 70 to 80% in most precincts). In the 2018 election in the Arrowhead Region, Stauber lost Lake County, Cook County, Carlton County and St. Louis County (Stauber’s home county). I am not sure how it will turn out this year, but in the primary Quinn Nystrom had more total votes than Stauber in District 8.
The other thing to consider is that unlike the urban areas where you can afford to burn a certain number of bridges, it is not smart to do that in a rural community. Because sooner or later, you will have to interact with someone you picked a fight with. As a result, it is better to be respectful about differences of opinion, and look for areas where you can work together. Obviously, there are people who enjoy being obnoxious and rude, but everyone knows who the are. In the long run being respectful and a good neighbor is appreciated.
So please go easy on lumping everyone in northern Minnesota in one category.
You made that point so much better than I could. Thank you. People should have learned from the time they starting playing in the sandbox that insulting other human beings, young or otherwise, does not lead to anything good for the person doing the insulting.
Having lived, traveled and spending a day with Bjorn Bull Hansen a Viking Therapist (yes Viking!). I am starting to understand the rural mindset. Unsurprisingly it has to do with mobility, spatial relationships and family. Although these are rarely discussed in the mainstream writing emanating from New York City………… The rural person may travel further but it is never crowded. They know a significant number of people in their everyday lives and their families which builds trust. And the nuclear family is very important to them. They do not have to adopt the attitudes of the elites to build their social standing. They have land (or access to space), family and would prefer not to join the metro rat race and lock their doors. In a heartfelt way I get it. Many of your readers never will…..In an interesting way policies that are pushing people out of rural areas are only deepening the divide. Just FYI I have never watched Fox News, Newshour is my thing and I am not a full redneck.
The idea that people in urban areas don’t know a lot of people and don’t build trust with people is just false. The idea that there isn’t community in urban areas is a lie perpetrated to stoke resentment of urban areas.
And that rural “community” isn’t all its cracked up to be either. The attitudes of many rural people toward minorities and LGBTQ people are ignorant and bigoted, which is not the case in the city. You can’t have a community when some members aren’t entitled to their basic civil rights.
The policies that are pushing people out of rural America are the ones the Republicans they vote for support. Rural America is heavily subsidized by urban America, yet Republicans want to push this myth of rugged individualism. Killing the ACA won’t be devastating to these places. But these people have been conditioned to vote against their own interests while their communities are slowly dying.
And its not just the economic policies – the bigotry is also pushing people away. They are are shutting out the creative class. They are shutting out the open minded, and leaving only the ignorant and bigoted behind. Its a death spiral of their own making.
In the language of civilizational collapse and the history if empires, the cities plunder the provinces until the people of the provinces overrun the cities.
Of course, those ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it.
We are all America. In the rural/urban divide, if rural folk have a duty to be less “ignorant and backwards”, then city folk have a duty to have “less contempt and condescension.”
I would add, we could all show more compassion.
Agreed!
Agree completely with Mr. Duncan’s comment about compassion. Many of us are hurting more than usual with this pandemic.
Its the tolerance of intolerance paradox. What is the proper response to bigotry and ignorance? What is the tolerant response to hate?
After reading Isabel Wilkerson’s “Caste: the Origins of Our Discontents,” I even more so believe it comes down to race. If our society functions on a hierarchal system, the support for Trump in rural and small town America makes a lot more sense. People are generally less educated and less secure financially. If there is already an in-bred inferiority because they feel that they are at the bottom of the white rungs, then Trump’s racist dog whistles and rhetoric strikes a real chord with them. Wilkerson says this type of voter is willing to overlook a lot of things and even vote against their self-interests because he or she is threatened by the people below them. Those people are colored and they live in the cities.
In Chisago County there are roads that go through a gauntlet of Trump signs and flags. It’s also striking how many blue and white striped flags there are showing support for the police. Even more striking are the scores of “Stand for the Flag, Kneel for the Cross” signs. Both are manifestations of being upset with Blacks who are not content to stay in their place, whether it’s BLM marchers or black athletes. I think the support for the police and the shallow patriotism covers a lot of fear.
There are obviously other factors like opposition to abortion, taxes, loss of jobs, fear of government, gun rights, etc.; but I do think the primary thing driving the divide is race.
Race has nothing to do with it. You could probably count the number of actual racists in rural MN on your fingers and toes.
What this all boils down to is individual liberty vs Marxism/Socialism. Those who Live in rural areas value their freedom, liberty and open spaces greatly. They don’t want govt mandates, taxes, regulations, gun control laws etc etc. Those who live in the cities tend to favor more and more govt control (Marxism).
The policies of the left have devastated rural America. They allowed all the manufacturers to ship jobs overseas where labor is dirt cheap. They have taxed most of us into poverty. Their deficit spending has destroyed purchasing power making us all poorer. Republicans haven’t been much better.
If it wasn’t so sad it would be amusing to see Democrats harping about a 15 dollar minimum wage yet they rant and rave at the mention of a tariff on China who uses essentially slave labor to make all the junk we buy. They harp on and on about climate change and pollution yet refuse to put a tariff on China who pollutes more than anyone on Earth and is building hundreds of coal fired power plants while doing nothing about reducing CO2. Its all hypocrisy. They won’t do a thing about anyone else they just want to blame the American people even though we have reduced carbon output and have the cleanest land, air and water.
“Those who Live in rural areas value their freedom, liberty and open spaces greatly.” And they value the economic help and social structures of the Cities of the Plain that makes their bucolic idylls convenient, if not possible (you’re not going to Benson for your triple bypass surgery).
I have lived in rural Minnesota and have found just as much despair and hopelessness as I have anywhere else (including pre-gentrification Brooklyn). In fact, it was despair augmented by a certain stubbornness: the obvious solution (“Move away!”) was met by a refusal and a demand that their preferences be accommodated. I don’t know how many people who admitted not having worked steadily or year-round for several years, but who weren’t going to budge (live at home, smoke cheap weed, and drink beer until it’s time to drive beets for a few weeks).
Stopped taking you seriously at, “You could probably count the number of actual racists in rural MN on your fingers and toes.” I could name you 10 off the top of my head in the area I live in. Yes, by name, because I’ve heard them over the years unless you consider people who use racial words and tell racial jokes not racist.
As for the rest of your rant, you might want to at least get some idea of what Marxism and Socialism actually is before you go claiming you’re all about freedom and those of us who don’t share your frightened and self-centered view are somehow less a patriot than you.
You’ve got it totally backwards. Outstate Minnesota loves socialism, because it is heavily subsidized by the Metro. We have to work extra hard here so that out taxes can subsidize people who are pretending to believe in individual liberty.
Bob, I wish you were right, but we both know you aren’t. A few years ago, I took a cabinet making class in WInona. That “class” turned out to be old people and Southeast Tech employees who filled that class so they could make furniture with the school’s equipment either on the state’s discounted rate for over-62 residents or the free employee rate. Obama was President then and every break was full of the most racist dialog I’ve heard, including Texas and Florida. I was stunned, honestly. We moved to Minnesota in 1996 and lived in the Cities for 20 years before retiring and moving to a small town that I had always imagined had a similar culture. I was wrong.
I have friends of various “colors” in the Cities and when I described my experience to them, I just got something I expect was a pitying smile. As in, “You poor fool. Know you know why we don’t visit those places.”
Republicans have been running for a long time now against cities. Republicans are able to speak of “Democrat run” cities, largely because Republicans have abandoned any attempt to be a political factor in the running of cities. This leaves Republicans who are actually running in cities in an extremely awkward position. Their argument to voters is that they are all lazy bums, too dependent on government and way too involved in questionable life style choices. Their arguments are the same arguments they make in rural areas who have always felt a real sense of grievance with respect to people who live in urban areas.
Thomas Jefferson’s “Agrarian Myth” (that rural dwellers are innately more moral, more spiritual, “better people” than urban dwellers) is obviously alive and well among some members of the commentariat. Having lived and worked in both environments, I have to say that Jefferson’s belief just doesn’t fit my experience. The most “spiritual” (as opposed to “religious”) people I’ve known have been urban residents, and while crime was relatively rare when I lived in the countryside, the bigotry expressed there was much the same decades ago as it is now. Racism is not innate – it has to be taught, and children emulate their parents. Crime is relatively rare in urban environments, too, but we’re a nation of TV-watchers, and TV is a visual medium, driven by ratings, and the commercial broadcasters of both TV and radio signals are entirely dependent upon advertising revenue, so their quest is to draw viewers and / or listeners by whatever means will work. With that motivation, video footage of a riot or a murder scene is much more likely to see air time (and thus be seen by viewers in both urban and rural areas) than a “feel-good” story of neighbor helping neighbor. A radio program appealing to whatever prejudices work for you will be more persuasive than one that merely presents factual data. If your only or primary source of information is TV, or radio, it makes for a skewed view of society and the world.
There has always been a division between city and rural interests. No doubt, back in the senate elections in the ancient world, Greater Italy voters griped about about Rome. It is a current in politics and human nature that has always been there for cynics and demagogues to exploit.
Unfortunately for rural Minnesota this embracing of the worst of Conservative “values” will only contribute to the decline in their economies. The “brain drain” is all ready happening. Folks have been leaving the farm and moving to the city seeking more opportunity and a more accepting environment for a very long time, the difference is after experiencing these things they will not want to go back to the close minded economically strapped towns of their youth. Companies seeking a diverse educated work force aren’t going to move into those areas no matter how deeply they cut taxes or how low a wage they can get away with. Just look at North and South Dakota. They’ve cut taxes to the bone and yet companies aren’t flocking there and those that do offer such a low wage that the few remaining young people who take those jobs get trapped into a never ending spiral of debt and despair. No nothing good will come of rural Minnesota’s lurch to the right. The only thing that will keep them afloat at all is the Minneapolis and St. Paul economic engine that fills the states general fund coffers so that wealth can be redistributed out to them. Of course that financial dependency breeds contempt so the cycle will continue.