A new poll for Minnesota shows President Donald Trump and Democrat nominee Joe Biden are tied in their race for the White House, with Trump netting 46.5% of those polled and Biden getting 46.9%.
The Trafalgar Group's poll, released on Thursday, showed a few people choosing neither candidate, with Jo Jorgensen, the Libertarian Party's nominee, getting 3.7% in the survey, an unnamed party candidate at 1.2%, and 1.7% of the participants remaining undecided.
The results may indicate a continued shift for the state of Minnesota, which has not voted for a Republican to win the presidential race since the election of Richard Nixon in 1972, according to NPR. Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton narrowly defeated Trump in the 2016 general election, with the president falling short of winning the state by just 44,000 votes, or 1.5 percentage points.
On Monday, before Trump delivered remarks at the Mankato Regional Airport in Minnesota, GOP Rep. Jim Hagedorn, whose district includes Mankato and a large section of Minnesota farm country, told MPR News that Trump’s support is strong in southern Minnesota.
“This time the polls show him right there in striking distance, and I got to tell you on the ground out here folks like the president’s message of law and order,” Hagedorn said, adding that further visits will build Trump's support. “Any time we can hear the president’s message of economic opportunity, keeping Americans safe and, of course, protecting our constitutional rights we’re really happy about it.”
The Trafalgar poll was conducted between Aug. 15 and Aug. 18 of 1,141 likely 2020 general election voters. It carried a margin of error of 2.98 percentage points with a confidence level of 95% and a response distribution of 50%. The poll results did not list how many Democrats in comparison to Republicans replied.