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By Mark Zdechlik, Minnesota Public Radio News

Democratic nominee Kamala Harris leads Republican nominee Donald Trump in Minnesota as people have begun to cast ballots to choose the next president, a new Minnesota Poll shows.

In the poll conducted last week for MPR News, KARE 11 and the Star Tribune, about 48 percent said they favor Vice President Harris to about 43 percent for former President Trump. That advantage is short of President Joe Biden’s victory margin four years ago — and considered close given the poll’s margin of sampling error of 3.5 percentage points — although Democrats are more energized than they were earlier this summer.

More than three-quarters of Democratic respondents said they were very enthusiastic about the party’s current presidential ticket while a similar share of Republicans said the same of their White House tandem.

When the same question was asked in June, Trump had a significant enthusiasm advantage over Biden, who left the race about a month later.

“That’s essentially disappeared,” said Brad Coker, the president of Mason Dixon Polling & Strategy which conducted the poll of 800 likely voters from Sept. 16 to 18. “Those very enthusiastically supporting Trump and those very enthusiastically supporting Harris are almost identical numbers now.”

Poll respondents still view both Harris and Trump more unfavorably than positively, but Harris fares slightly better than Trump in that rating.

Harris has the backing of 44-year-old Christine Burnham, a poll respondent who lives in Owatonna. She said she is delighted Harris is running for president after four years as Biden’s vice president and that she has picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as a running mate.

“I believe in reproductive rights. I believe we are still suffering under the tax code that Donald Trump wrote many moons ago,” Burnham, a mother of three, said. “I believe in democracy.”

Don McCormick, who lives in the St. Croix River community of Lakeland, said he’s voting for former President Donald Trump. McCormick shared some of his thoughts about the race after returning an item to the public library there.

He said he does not trust Harris.

“With all her things she’s saying that she’s going to do for the middle class, I don’t believe it,” McCormick said.

Nor is McCormick happy with Walz, citing his handling of the state’s finances as governor when Minnesota was running up massive surpluses.

“You know, money saved up — it was all gone in a month or two,” he said. “I think he just wasted it.”

The likely voters were asked about their views on issues prominent in the campaign; the economy, access to abortion, immigration and threats to democracy.

Forty-one percent rated the nation’s economic condition as poor compared with 31 percent who saw it as “excellent” or “good.” Most of the rest — 27 percent — classified it as “fair.”

Almost half — 47 percent — said illegal immigration was a “very serious” problem and another 32 percent said “somewhat serious.” Just 21 percent offered less concern.

More voters think Trump is better equipped to handle both of those issues than is Harris.

Harris had the upper hand on who voters trust on abortion and the nation’s democracy.

Respondents were closely split on whether abortion law should be a federal matter or one left to the states. More than two-thirds told pollsters they’re worried about the health of democracy.

Minnesota isn’t among the states being most contested in the 2024 presidential race. In late July, Trump rallied thousands of supporters at a hockey arena in St. Cloud. He predicted he would win Minnesota, which has not broken for a Republican presidential candidate since Richard Nixon in 1972.

Harris has not been in Minnesota since securing her party’s nomination in August, but Walz has been home on and off since becoming the vice presidential candidate.

While the poll shows most Minnesotans have made up their minds about the presidential race, about 8 percent say they don’t support either Trump or Harris or haven’t made up their minds. Self-described independents were the biggest chunk of undecideds.

Editor’s note: Detailed poll results and complete methodology are available in a report prepared by APM Research Lab, MPR News’ sister organization. For continually-updated results of election-year polling in Minnesota, see Minnesota Poll Watch 2024.