Sure, Mark Dayton won the DFL gubernatorial primary -- but what really happened on Tuesday night?

A close look at the unofficial numbers show that Dayton picked an unusual path to victory: lose in the metro, make it up big in the north, rely heavily on senior citizens and blue-collar areas.

The former U.S. senator lost the state's biggest cities by large margins. In Minneapolis alone, Margaret Anderson Kelliher won 55 percent of the vote for a 12,000-vote advantage. She also took St. Paul, Edina, Minnetonka and other key suburbs.

But Dayton, 63, made up ground almost everywhere else for a sure -- if narrow -- 7,000-vote victory. He captured nearly 50 percent of the vote in rural Minnesota and posted huge numbers on the Iron Range and in Duluth, home of his running mate, state Sen. Yvonne Prettner Solon.

Solon, Dayton and the unions supporting them -- including the Steelworkers Union -- worked the north hard and it paid off, said Bill Hanna, longtime editor of the Mesabi Daily News.

Dayton also succeeded in holding strong with elderly voters.

Star Tribune
Margaret Anderson Kelliher, shown early Wednesday at Jax Cafe, won precincts with an average or lower number of elderly voters. But there are more precincts where senior citizens are a high number of the voters, and Mark Dayton did well in them.

In precincts with high senior populations, he was dominant; he won 45 percent of the vote in those areas.

Kelliher, who at 42 is 21 years Dayton's junior, picked up the bulk of the vote in areas with lower percentages of senior voters.

For the third member of the main DFL primary trio, Matt Entenza, the numbers left much to be desired. His spending of about $5 million, largely from his own pocket, won him just 80,000 votes, meaning he spent about $63 per vote.

Entenza, 48, won just a small smattering of areas, including big wins in his boyhood home of Worthington and in some Twin Cities precincts. But he got more votes than his colleagues in just two of the state's 87 counties -- Lyon and Nobles -- and he lost big to Kelliher in his home precinct in St. Paul's Mac-Groveland neighborhood.

As for turnout, the numbers show that a contested statewide primary and a smattering of high-interest local races pushed voters to the polls despite the new summer date. Just under 15 percent of eligible voters, nearly 600,000 voters, decided to cast ballots Tuesday.

The percentage was the highest for a state primary since 2002.

"Minnesotans made sure their voices were heard," Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said.

rachel.stassen-berger@startribune.com • 651-292-0164 howatt@startribune.com • 612-673-7192

DISHIN' THE DATA: For a second helping of all the delicious data, go to the Hot Politics blog at www.startribune.com/hotdish

RESULTS COUNTY BY COUNTY: See the breakdown across the state B5 • Dayton got an edge from having senior citizens in his column B5