Abortion rights are still top of mind for Twin Cities voters, while Greater Minnesota voters expressed more concern over the rising costs of goods and illegal immigration, according to the latest MinnPost/Embold Research poll.
Among voters in the Twin Cities suburbs, the largest share – 63% – selected rising costs, followed by abortion rights, taxes and gun violence. The issue landing on the most priority lists in the urban core primarily including Minneapolis and St. Paul was the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and state governments banning abortion, with 56% of respondents selecting it among their four top concerns.
In Greater Minnesota, 62% named rising costs a top concern, followed by illegal immigration (49%) and taxes (43%).
Cynthia Rugeley, an associate professor and political science department head at the University of Minnesota Duluth, said lasting concerns over the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade reflects on trust in government.
“Previously when Roe v. Wade was in effect, a lot of the supporters believed, ‘Well, it’s a constitutional protection so they can’t take it away.’ I think what you’re seeing … in this is a feeling that ‘Well, they can take it away, and so it’s going to remain an important issue to us until we gain trust that it won’t be taken away (again),’” Rugeley said.
While Minnesota has passed several protective laws, Rugeley said these poll results suggest voters are still concerned about potential changes to those laws. She also thinks it shows that the abortion issue will continue to have a stronghold on who gets elected in upcoming state races.
“The fact that that issue, even after the Minnesota Legislature took some big steps, I think that that issue still remains important. That has to be a concern for not only Republicans seeking national office, but Republicans seeking a statewide office in the future,” Rugeley said.
The issues important to people in the three different regions – Twin Cities, suburbs and Greater Minnesota – are also mostly consistent with last year’s poll.
Rugeley thinks immigration is a top issue in Greater Minnesota because it falls into overall party concerns, and there has been a larger share of GOP votes in Greater Minnesota in recent elections. Statewide, the poll found 74% of GOP voter respondents expressed that illegal immigration is a high priority for them, compared to 8% of Democrat respondents.
“I think that's reflected in what they identify as issues not so much that they think it's important, but it's the messages they hear from political candidates and perhaps media outlets that they listen to or pay attention to,” Rugeley said.
She was a bit surprised to see election security and voter fraud crop up as a top issue for Greater Minnesotans, with 37% of respondents including it in their four top concerns.
“It kind of indicates that (there was) a lack of confidence in the last election,” she said. “Surveys that I saw immediately after the (2022) election of Minnesota didn't indicate this doubt, but now, there seems to be more of it.”
Economic pressures span national
With the rising cost of goods and groceries being among the top issues for all regions, Rugeley said there’s a sense of statewide economic pressures.
A majority of poll respondents – a range of 61%-74% across the three regions – said their income is falling behind the cost of living, with 73% of Greater Minnesota respondents saying that, and 74% of Twin Cities suburban residents responding as such.
In MinnPost’s 2022 poll, 81% of respondents in Greater Minnesota felt their income was falling behind the cost of living compared to 68% in the Twin Cities suburbs.
Rugeley said the high percentages reflect there are considerable economic pressures across the state.
Ben Greenfield, who conducted the poll for Embold Research, said that the company's other polls show that economic strain is also relevant in other areas of the nation.
“This is something that we're seeing in a lot of different areas in the country, even where the economy is generally doing well by kind of traditional metrics, is that people are really feeling the cost of living,” Greenfield said. “That can mean the cost of groceries, the cost of gas, the cost of housing. That appears to be the main thing that is driving people's economic anxieties and economic pain.”
Across all Minnesota regions, there is heavy sentiment that things in the country are on the wrong track, with a range between 69%-82% of respondents in each region indicating that sentiment. A smaller percentage of people in the Twin Cities feel that way compared to Greater Minnesota and the Twin Cities suburbs.
Biden has high rates of disapproval in Greater Minnesota and the Twin Cities suburbs, of 67% and 56% of respondents respectively. In the Twin Cities, 40% of respondents disapproved of the job he’s done.
Fifty-six percent of Greater Minnesota respondents said if elections were held today, they would vote for Trump over Biden, as would 36% of those in the Twin Cities suburbs and 19% of Twin Cities respondents. But support for Biden is higher in Greater Minnesota (35%) than support for Trump in the Twin Cities.
Biden has more support in the Twin Cities and its suburbs, with 69% and 49% of respondents respectively, saying they would vote for him over Trump. According to the poll, Trump is the more popular candidate among GOP primary voters in all regions.
How do the regions feel about their state?
Gov. Tim Walz’s approval rates are highest in the Twin Cities with 77% of respondents approving of the his work, followed by 56% in the Twin Cities suburbs and 39% in Greater Minnesota – where 61% of respondents disapproved of his work.
Similarly, when it comes to whether the state is going in the wrong direction or right direction, the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota were at odds. Sixty-three percent of respondents in Greater Minnesota felt the state is going on the wrong track versus 30% in the Twin Cities.
“There seems to be a greater amount of pessimism in Greater Minnesota than there is in the cities and even the metro areas. That really is something that jumped out at me the differences and perceptions of how well things are going in Minnesota. That really says something," Rugeley said.
Both Rugeley and Greenfield said this year's legislative session in which DFL lawmakers passed a large number of major policy and spending bills is important context.
Greenfield said the poll suggests there’s mixed sentiment around what passed.
“People's reaction to it (the past legislative session) is maybe a little bit different than what we're seeing elsewhere, just because the nature of the state government has been different in Minnesota. But as we can see in these results, it's not a universally positive reaction, even among Democrats,” Greenfield said. “I think that it's going to be interesting to see what voters actually do with those feelings.”
A significant portion of Greater Minnesotan and Twin Cities suburban respondents (53% and 46% respectively) thought more of the state’s $18 billion surplus should have gone toward tax cuts. A smaller share (23%) of Twin Cities respondents agreed.
Forty percent of respondents in the Twin Cities felt that the balance in spending the budget surplus was about right, and 22% of those in the Twin Cities thought more of the surplus should have gone to spending. That contrasts with just 10% of suburban respondents and 8% of Greater Minnesota respondents.
Methodology
The MinnPost/Embold Research poll surveyed 1,519 state voters from Nov. 14-17 in an online poll that had a margin of error of +/-2.6%. Six hundred sixty-four of the respondents were from Greater Minnesota, 597 were from Twin Cities suburbs and 232 individuals in the Twin Cities. The margin of error for the sample by region is +/- 3.8% in Greater Minnesota, +/- 4.0% in the Twin Cities suburbs and +/- 6.4% in the Twin Cities.
For the purposes of the poll, Twin Cities was defined as Minneapolis and St. Paul as well as some peripheral areas, including parts of Edina, Little Canada and St. Louis Park, among other cities.
The poll was conducted by Embold Research, the nonpartisan arm of Change Research. The pollsters recruit respondents via targeted ads on websites and social media platforms. Change Research has a B- pollster rating from FiveThirtyEight.
Embold Research uses a “modeled” margin of error, which it says accounts for the effects of weighting the poll (or making adjustments to better reflect the state’s demographics). The results were weighted on age, gender, race/ethnicity and region.
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