Harris-Walz poised to claim Minnesota’s electoral votes

Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz were poised to win Minnesota’s electoral votes on Tuesday, but there was little to celebrate as a path to nationwide victory looked narrow.

Neither Harris-Walz nor former President Donald Trump and running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, spent much time campaigning in the state. Republicans had pledged to turn Minnesota red for the first time since 1972, but polls consistently showed Harris-Walz with a slim but steady lead.

Late into the evening Tuesday, the returns looked far less promising for the Democrats.

If elected, Harris would be the first female president and Walz would be the third Minnesotan elected to the vice presidency.

Harris and Walz ran a compressed campaign as she tapped him for the ticket in early August shortly after President Joe Biden stepped aside and just before the start of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Walz sought to join Minnesota’s favorite sons, the late vice presidents Walter Mondale and Hubert Humphrey, who served, respectively, with former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Lyndon Johnson.

Voting in north Minneapolis Tuesday, Joseph Thomas, 39, said he chose Harris and cited equality, help with housing and taxes as issues he cared about most. He also liked that Harris could be the first female president: “That was a big deal, too,” he said.

At Martin Luther King Recreation Center in St. Paul, Kate Kulzer walked her dog, a Catahoula leopard dog named Rhubarb, and dropped her fiancé off to vote about an hour before polls closed. Kulzer had voted for Harris earlier in the day – but she considered it a vote against Trump.

“I know far more liberal people than myself,” said Kulzer, 36, an architectural drafter. “I’m definitely open to moderate ideas. But Trump, I just think he’s a really bad person.”

But in Hermantown, Minn., Jane and John Marconett made their presidential pick clear as they backed out of the parking lot: Trump.

“We want to make America great again,” Jane called through the window. “We don’t like what’s happened in the past four years. And I’m not voting for Harris just because she’s a woman. We need competency.”

Before Biden’s departure from the race, Trump rallied Minnesota Republicans by saying he planned to flip Minnesota red in this year’s presidential election, taking the state’s 10 electoral votes.

Trump and Vance appeared before a capacity crowd at their first joint rally as a ticket in St. Cloud in late July. That visit followed a Trump speech at the Republican Party’s Lincoln Reagan Dinner in St. Paul in May.

Harris picked Walz for the national ticket days after Trump’s trip to St. Cloud. Her only stop in Minnesota came long before she led the ticket: She made a historic visit in March to the Planned Parenthood Clinic in St. Paul with Walz at her side as they talked about supporting reproductive care.

Mostly skirting Minnesota, all four candidates and their surrogates made frequent forays into neighboring Wisconsin.

As he campaigned, Walz spoke of the progressive victories of his six-year gubernatorial tenure, including the many new laws passed by the DFL-controlled Legislature in 2023 and 2024. Across the country, he repeated the refrain: “Right now, Minnesota is showing the country you don’t win elections to bank political capital — you win elections to burn political capital and improve lives.”

He talked of free meals for all Minnesota school kids, reproductive health care protections, paid family and medical leave, universal background checks for gun purchases and red-flag laws allowing friends and family to alert a judge when gun owners appear to be a danger to themselves or others.

Minnesota’s absence from the campaign travel itineraries of both parties was a strong indication that neither considered the state to be in play.

Staff writers Zoe Jackson, Reid Forgrave and Christa Lawler contributed to this story.