AP VoteCast: Minnesota voters sour on state of nation

Voters in Minnesota gave Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden its 10 electoral votes while holding negative views about the country's direction, according to an expansive AP survey of the American electorate.

The race between President Donald Trump and Biden concluded Tuesday in a deeply divided nation struggling with a once-in-a-century pandemic and a severe economic downturn. AP VoteCast found that nearly 4 in 10 Minnesota voters said the U.S. is on the right track and 6 in 10 said it is headed in the wrong direction.

AP called the Minnesota presidential race for Biden.

Here's a snapshot of who voted and what matters to them, based on preliminary results from AP VoteCast, a nationwide survey of about 133,000 voters and nonvoters -- including 3,613 voters and 449 nonvoters in Minnesota -- conducted for The Associated Press by NORC at the University of Chicago.

TRUMP VS BIDEN

Biden's victory in Minnesota continues of a streak of Democratic presidential victories going back nearly a half century.

Biden was preferred over Trump among voters under 45 but older voters were split.

"I'm very much a conservative but Trump is just not what I want from a leader," said Marty Boeckman, 57, a software engineer from Blaine who voted for Biden. "He doesn't have leadership,"

Both voters in cities and suburban voters were more likely to back Biden over Trump while voters in small towns and rural areas were more likely to prefer Trump.

FACING THE PANDEMIC

The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 230,000 Americans, among them more than 2,400 Minnesotans as cases surge in the state.

Overall, nearly 2 in 10 voters said the virus in the U.S. is completely or mostly under control, and 3 in 10 said it's somewhat under control. Half of voters think the coronavirus is not at all under control in this country.

Jared Vincent, a 29-year-old data analyst who voted for Biden, said he believes the former vice president will listen to the advice of experts and scientists, unlike the current president, and act more aggressively against the virus.

The virus response "has been very reactionary," said Vincent, who lives in Minneapolis. "I probably would have voted the same way, but it made it stronger."

Trump voter Greg Janacek, 45, of Blaine, said the government response to the pandemic could have been better but overall he is satisfied with it.

"It's a good balance of staying open but still protecting our citizens," he said.

ON THE ISSUES

Voters also considered the economy a major issue, with about one quarter of them saying it ranked at the top.

One in 10 named health care, and less then 1 in 10 named racism and less than 1 in 10 named climate change.

Dan Giesen, 56, of Minneapolis, said he leans conservative but he voted for Biden this time.

"People he has appointed like Bill Barr have been undermining our institutions like the Department of Justice and using them in a political manner instead of in an independent manner," he said. "We can deal with partisan differences when our institutions and our norms are in place, but I think that those are being seriously eroded under Donald Trump."

NATIONAL ECONOMY

Trump hoped his embrace of the mining industry and his financial aid to farmers in a state hit hard by the China trade war would help him edge out a victory.

Biden told supporters in a speech in the Duluth area before the election that his policies would help support American manufacturing.

RACE FOR SENATE

Democratic incumbent Tina Smith fended off a challenge from Republican Jason Lewis to hold onto her Senate seat.

Lewis tied his fate to Trump in his campaign. He has campaigned with the president, flew on Air Force One with him and repeatedly echoed the president's position, blasting coronavirus restrictions and supporting the president's law-and-order stance.

College-educated voters were more likely to back Smith over Lewis while Lewis and Smith were neck and neck among voters without a college degree.

Lewis was preferred among voters in small towns and rural areas but Smith led among both voters in cities and suburban voters.

STAYING AT HOME

Among registered voters who chose not to cast a ballot in Minnesota, about one-quarter said that was because they don't like politics generally, 2 in 10 said they don't like the candidates and 1 in 10 said they don't know enough about the candidates' positions.

In Minnesota, about 7 in 10 of nonvoters were younger than 45 and 8 in 10 did not have a college degree.

AP VoteCast is a survey of the American electorate conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for Fox News, NPR, PBS NewsHour, Univision News, USA Today Network, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press. The survey of 3,613 voters in Minnesota was conducted for eight days, concluding as polls closed. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. The survey combines a random sample of registered voters drawn from the state voter file and self-identified registered voters selected from nonprobability online panels. The margin of sampling error for voters is estimated to be plus or minus 2.1 percentage points. Find more details about AP VoteCast's methodology at https://ap.org/votecast.

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