REGIONAL— Former Vice President Joe Biden easily won Minnesota on Tuesday, despite an aggressive effort by President Donald Trump’s campaign to flip the state he narrowly lost in 2016.
Indeed, few states in the U.S. experienced the kind of singular focus of the Trump campaign as Minnesota. The campaign poured millions of dollars into advertising, hiring staff, and brought both Trump and Vice President Mike Pence to the state for multiple rallies in recent weeks, most of them in northern Minnesota.
Yet the incumbent president actually lost ground in the North Star state this time around. In 2016, candidate Hillary Clinton edged Trump by 1.5 percent. As of Wednesday, however, unofficial results from the Secretary of State put Biden up with 52.43 percent to Trump’s 45.26 percent, a margin of more than seven percent. More than 3.1 million Minnesotans cast ballots in 2020, up 15 percent from the 2.7 million ballots cast four years ago.
While Trump carried the day in many precincts in far northern St. Louis County, he generally won by lesser margins than four years ago (see complete precinct results pg. 7). In St. Louis County as a whole, Biden won 57-41 percent, an improvement on Hillary Clinton’s 51-40 percent margin in 2016.
Across the Eighth Congressional District, Biden slightly improved on Clinton’s margins from four years ago. In 2016, Trump carried the Eighth 54-38. He won again this time, but by a somewhat slimmer 56-42 margin. Both candidates improved on their percentage of the vote in 2020 as fewer voters cast ballots for third party candidates.
The national picture, as of the Timberjay’s Wednesday deadline, was less certain, although it appeared that Biden was almost certain to win the popular vote and was on track to reach the needed 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. President Trump, however, had already declared victory and was threatening lawsuits to halt counting of mail-in ballots in some battleground states.
Smith wins U.S. Senate bid
The Tuesday night presidential trend in Minnesota largely held true in the U.S. Senate contest between incumbent Sen. Tina Smith and her GOP challenger, former right-wing talk show host Jason Lewis. Smith won with 49 percent of the vote, to 43 percent for Lewis, as Kevin O’Connor of the Legal Marijuana Now party netted just under six percent of the vote. The two legal marijuana parties on the ballot drew considerable votes in many locations and were clearly a factor in a number of races. Nearly ten percent of voters in Tower backed the Legal Marijuana Now party in the U.S. Senate race.
Smith won 54-38 in St. Louis County, while she lost 52-40 across the Eighth District overall.
But a strong showing in the Twin Cities metropolitan region pushed Smith over the top statewide.
Stauber re-elected
The Republican tilt of the Eighth District proved a deal-breaker for DFL challenger Quinn Nystrom, who lost to first-term U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber, of Duluth. Stauber cruised to re-election by a 57-38 percent margin, to become the first Republican in modern political history to win re-election in Minnesota’s Eighth District. Stauber tallied 215,115 votes to Nystrom’s 142,708.
Nystrom did narrowly win St. Louis County, however, by a 49-45 percent margin.
Nystrom conceded to Stauber on Tuesday, although she told supporters that her fight for lower healthcare costs would continue. “I have a fundamental belief that people in the wealthiest country on earth should be able to afford the medicines and care they need to keep themselves alive. And I’m not going to stop fighting until that becomes a reality.”
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