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By Craig Helmstetter and Anna Haecherl, Minnesota Public Radio News

The latest poll of Minnesota likely voters — the first conducted since Walz was announced as the Democrat’s Vice Presidential candidate and released on Monday — shows the Democrats leading the Republicans in the race for the state’s 10 electoral college votes.

Vice President Harris leads former President Trump by 6.9 percentage points in the first poll conducted in Minnesota since she selected Gov. Walz as her running mate. This lead is just within the poll’s margin of error, meaning that technically the race could be tied (but also that Harris’ lead could be even larger).

This latest poll comes after four other public polls of Minnesota voters conducted since Biden’s withdrawal all showing Harris leading Trump. Her lead is beyond the error margins associated with two of the polls: She leads by 6 percentage points in Fox News’ survey of 1,071 registered voters (margin of error ± 3.0 percentage points) and 10 percentage points in KSTP’s survey of 656 likely voters (credibility interval ± 4.4 percentage points).

In the latest poll, which was conducted by the Telegraph, only 4 percent indicated support for third-party candidates: 3 percent favored Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and less than 1 percent favored Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Libertarian Chase Oliver, respectively. Notably, that poll also found Harris’ job approval rating (46 percent) higher than the favorability ratings for either Trump (39 percent) or JD Vance (27 percent). In Minnesota, 51 percent of likely voters indicated a favorable rating for Walz.

Prior to Biden’s withdrawal, polling had generally shown the presidential race in Minnesota too close to call when factoring in the undecided voters and the error margins or credibility intervals that accompany the results.

For example, in early June, the MPR News/Star Tribune/KARE11 Minnesota Poll of 800 likely voters and margin of error ±3.5 percentage points, found that 45 percent favored Biden, 41 percent favored Trump, 6 percent favored Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and 7 percent were undecided.

Election forecasts

As of Aug. 14, leading election forecasters have rated the race for Minnesota’s 10 electoral votes as follows.

• Cook Political Report: Leans Democrat (last updated Aug. 8; changed from “Likely” on July 9)
• Sabato’s Crystal Ball (UVA Center for Politics): Leans Democrat (last updated Aug. 7)
• NPR: Leans Democrat (last updated Aug. 5)
• ABC News/538: Had the state as Leans Democrat (last updated July 21; since that time they have suspended forecasting until more information about the race comes in).

Background

Minnesota has the nation’s longest streak among all states for favoring a Democrat for president. A Republican has not won the presidential race in Minnesota since 1972, when Republican

President Richard Nixon defeated Democratic nominee George McGovern by 5.5 percentage points. In 2020, Democrat Joe Biden won the state by a margin of 7.1 percentage points over then-President Donald Trump. In 2016, Trump also lost the state, but only by 1.5 percentage points.

Both the Democrats and Republicans have faced setbacks in this year’s presidential campaign:

On May 30, Trump was convicted as a felon “as a New York jury found him guilty of all 34 charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor.”

On June 27, then presumptive Democratic nominee President Biden had a weak performance in a televised debate that played directly into fears about his age and continued fitness for office — leading some to call for his withdrawal from the race.

On July 13, Trump survived an assassination attempt at his outdoor campaign rally in Butler, Penn. Later that week Republicans officially nominated Trump and his newly-announced running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, at the Republican National Convention.

On July 21, Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. Delegates to the upcoming Democratic National Convention, ultimately responsible for the party’s nomination, quickly united around Harris, both in Minnesota and nationally.

Harris announced that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz would be her vice presidential running mate on Aug. 6.