As Nov. 5 nears, Minnesota polling indicates ‘ideologically consistent’ electorate

One of the purposes of public opinion polling isn’t just to capture a moment in time but to see how opinions change over time.

But what if they don’t change?

Over the last four MinnPost/Embold Research surveys of Minnesota voters, sentiment has stayed nearly the same on several key questions — the issues most important to voters and whether the state and nation are moving in the right direction or are on the wrong track.

The polls were taken in October of 2022, November of 2023, September of 2024 and October of 2024

Though approval ratings for President Joe Biden have moved up and down some — though never into positive territory — thoughts about Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz have stayed remarkably consistent. That is true even when an earlier poll taken in June of 2022 is included.

Of those surveyed in the first two polls, 50% said they strongly or somewhat strongly approve of the DFL governor’s job performance and 49% said they strongly or somewhat strongly disapproved. In the final three polls, including one taken this month, the numbers moved only to 51% approve/49% disapprove.

Those who said they thought Minnesota was moving in the right direction made up 46% just before the 2022 election, rose to 48% last November, 50% last month and 48% in the latest survey. Going back one poll, however, to June of 2022, only 41% of Minnesota voters surveyed felt the state was moving in the right direction.

The United States’ direction has received more pessimistic scores than for the state. Starting in June of ‘22 through this month, the percentage of surveyed voters choosing “right direction” has vacillated from 21% to 28% to 20% to 30% and now to 29%.

With some exceptions — made more notable by the relative lack of movement overall — the issues voters are giving high priority to haven’t changed significantly. When allowed to pick four issues, voters most often cited the rising cost of goods such as groceries and gasoline. In October of 2022, 61% of voters made that choice; this month 59% did.

Concern over the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and restrictions on abortion in some states have consistently gotten voters attention, with 43% citing it in October of 2022 and 41% this month.

But while abortion ranked second across the polls, that changed this month when “illegal immigration and the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border” took the No. 2 spot. Over the four polls, the percentage of voters saying immigration was one of the four issues they are focusing on rose from 34% two years ago to 43% this month. For the two polls in between, the issue was cited by 39% of voters each time.

The nine percentage-point increase from before the 2022 election “indicates that immigration being such a large talking point in the election has influenced voters’ priority of that issue,” said Embold Research analyst Jessica Mason. 

Christopher Chapp, a St. Olaf College professor of political science who studies public opinion polling, said the situation at the border has not “objectively changed” between the polling dates. In fact, it has likely improved.

“The fact that that number is staying as high as it is is probably a reflection of campaign rhetoric,” Chapp said. Campaigns highlight issues that are favorable to the candidate, and this goes for both sides.

“It’s why Republicans are talking about immigration and Democrats are talking about reproductive freedom,” he said.

The opposite movement came with violent crime. Two years ago it was included by 42% of voters. That dropped to 31% in November of 2023 and 24% in both of this year’s polls.

Ben Greenfield is a pollster at Embold Research, which conducted the polls for MinnPost. He said polling results have been stable over the summer and fall, something that could be surprising given how the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump materialized just three months ago.

“It’s been a remarkably stable race,” he said. “Nationally that is true too. Historically if you look back, especially in pre-Trump elections, there has been much greater movement over the final month, two months of the campaign.”

Greenfield looked back at election polling in 2012 and “there’s a lot of crisscrossing of the lines just over the course of October.” The lack of debates since early September could contribute to the lack of movement in public opinion, he said. 

“It might be more interesting if there was movement, but I think it is newsworthy that it is stable as well,” he said.

Minnesota voters were asked in the latest poll when they made up their mind in the presidential race. Of the respondents, 51% said they have always known; 11% said before the final candidates were known, 27% said once the finalists were known. In addition, 7% said they decided in the last month and 3% said in the last month. The poll of 1,734 likely voters was taken Oct. 16-22.

“This is a very tribal election, in Minnesota but also nationally,” Mason said. In September, 96% of self-identified Democrats said they would vote for Harris and 95% of self-identified Republicans said they would vote for Trump. The others aren’t voting for the other major party candidates but are saying they’ll support a third party and were unsure.

Only 2% of Republicans said in October they would vote for Harris, the same number who made that choice in the September poll.

Chapp said the lack of movement could be a feature of a politically polarized America.

“Most people are not switching their preferred candidates, and we often filter our views on other things like the state of the national economy and right track-wrong track through a partisan lens,” Chapp said. “That goes for both parties.

“And for that reason we are seeing a good deal of stability,” he said. 

Is that good or bad? Chapp said in the 1950s political scientists worried about the lack of “attitudinal stability.”

“People seemed to be changing their minds on important issues of the day,” Chapp said. How could someone be liberal on three topics and conservative on two others?

“We’re in a different era now,” he said. “Rather than bemoaning the lack of consistency, we’re bemoaning the partisan filtering of information, and that can be troubling. The stability you’re seeing in the polling data is probably a reflection of the fact that people have self-selected into ideologically consistent media sources and ideologically consistent peer groups.

“For that reason, people are unlikely to encounter information that’s going to make them change their minds,” he said.

Peter Callaghan

Peter Callaghan covers state government for MinnPost. Follow him on Twitter @CallaghanPeter or email him at pcallaghan@minnpost.com.

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