Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump continue to be locked in a tight race in Minnesota, with few undecided voters supporting either candidate.

A new MinnPost-Embold Research poll showed Harris with a slight edge over Trump, 48 to 45 percent in the state, virtually unchanged from Harris’ 49 to 45 percent lead last month in a poll similar. Both results were within the poll’s 2.4 percentage point margin of error.

One reason there’s no movement among likely Minnesota voters? Very few undecided voters stay this late in the election cycle; only 2% of those surveyed said they were undecided, compared to 3% last month.

“Between September and October, the numbers remained essentially unchanged,” said Embold Research pollster Jessica Mason.

Five percent of those surveyed said they planned to vote for someone other than Harris or Trump.

The poll also showed independents favoring Trump over Harris between 36 and 27 percent. Another 24% of these independent voters said they preferred “another candidate.”

Meanwhile, the poll detected a significant change in Senator JD Vance’s favorable ratings. In September, his unfavorable rating was minus 16%, meaning more respondents had a “very unfavorable” or “somewhat unfavorable” opinion of Trump’s running mate than a favorable opinion.

That unfavorable rating was cut in half – to minus 8% – in the latest MinnPost-Embold poll.

Mason said Vance’s rise in popularity was attributable, at least in part, to his debate with Gov. Tim Walz on Oct. 1. Mason said the vice presidential debate, characterized by its civility, “put Vance’s face in front of voters.” ” and presented it to the nation in a positive way.

Snap polls taken just after the debate, including a CBS/YouGov poll of respondents who watched the debate, indicated that both candidates increased their favorability — although more viewers still held Walz in higher regard than Vance.

Walz favor ‘gives Harris a little boost’

The latest MinnPost-Embold Research poll also showed there was little movement in the favorability of other candidates who are leading the Democratic and Republican lists this year. And, once again, only one candidate, Walz, obtained a positive approval rating, at 2%. Harris and Trump continued to have negative favorable ratings.

Harris’ unfavorable rating was minus 5% and Trump’s was minus 11%.

Steven Schier, professor emeritus of political science at Carleton College, said Walz’s high favorable ratings “probably result in a slight improvement” for Harris.

And Schier said Trump’s unfavorable rating, which is more than twice Harris’s, hurts him.

“Trump has never been very popular in Minnesota,” he said.

In 2016, voters in Minnesota’s GOP presidential primary favored Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. Additionally, no Republican presidential candidate has won Minnesota since Richard Nixon won the state in 1972.

Still, Schier said, “We have a very close race here.”

The lack of substantial movement in Minnesota’s presidential race is reflected in national polls and in polls in key states that will likely decide the Nov. 5 election. The latest average of national polls by FiveThirtyEight gives Harris a slight 48 to 46.6 percent advantage over Trump, with little change in the neck-and-neck nature of this race over several weeks.

Schier also said that slight changes in polling on the presidential race are the result of “normal errors in polling research.”

The MinnPost-Embold Research poll surveyed 1,734 likely 2024 Minnesota voters between Oct. 16-22. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.

A genre “canyon”

A huge gender gap persists in the presidential race.

The latest MinnPost-Embold survey showed that Harris is up 13 percentage points among women and Trump is up 12 percentage points among men.

“It’s not a gap, it’s a canyon,” Schier said.

The professor also said that “men’s and women’s programs are different,” leading to a difference in support for candidates.

According to the survey, 26 percent of men said abortion was a major concern, while 42 percent of women cited abortion as a major concern. And when it came to inflation, 69% of men said it was a major concern, compared to 53% of women.

The geographic divide in Minnesota could be even greater. Respondents in Greater Minnesota overwhelmingly said they supported Trump over Harris, 64% to 31%, a response that was reversed in Minneapolis and St. Paul, where Harris was favored 69% – 20 %. In the seven-county metro area, excluding Minneapolis and St. Paul, Harris had a slight 48% to 45% lead over Trump.

An advantage for Harris: 19% of those surveyed said they had already voted – an overwhelming majority for her. Among these early voters in Minnesota, 70% said they voted for Harris, while only 27% said they voted for Trump.

Schier said the strong early vote for Harris means “you’re banking on your vote early and you don’t have to depend on the weather and turnout on Election Day — and that’s a big advantage.” .

According to the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office, 565,909 Minnesotans had voted as of October 24. But that’s about half of the roughly 1.2 million early ballots that were submitted during the same period in 2020, when the pandemic prevented many from voting. places.

Schier also said Harris has another advantage: strong Democratic ground play in the state.

“The DFL is in a better position to attract voters on Election Day,” he said.

This story was originally published on MinnPost.com