President Obama has a Minnesota visit on his docket before the November election.
In a Sunday article about the tough time Democrats are having this year, the New York Times reported, "President Obama is adding more fundraisers to his schedule, traveling to Florida and Minnesota over the next six weeks."
The New York Times report highlighted the campaigning Obama plans to do for House Democrats.
DFL candidate for governor Mark Dayton said the week he won the party primary that he had asked both the president and Vice President Joe Biden to visit the state to help him raise money.
Obama, who stopped in Minnesota often during his 2008 campaign, was in the state one year ago to push for his health care overhaul.
Since then the president's and Democrats' poll numbers have plummeted. A recent Star Tribune/Minnesota Poll found 44 percent of Minnesota voters approved of the job Obama was doing.
But an Obama visit could rally Democrats; the poll found that the president remained popular among Minnesota Democrats.
Republicans were gleeful that the unpopular president would visit. "President Obama should use his trip to the North Star State as an opportunity to explain to Minnesota families why his economic policies are leading to perpetually high unemployment," National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Tom Erickson said in a statement.
Minnesota's unemployment rate is lower than the nation's but still higher than it was several years ago.
Rachel E. Stassen-Berger • 651-292-0164
