Biden Wins Minnesota, According to AP Projection

UPDATE 12:21 a.m.: Joe Biden is projected to win Minneapolis, according to a projection from AP.

Polling locations in the battleground state of Minnesota opened at 7 a.m. local time on Election Day and will remain open until 8 p.m.

A final election poll, released Thursday by KSTP/SurveyUSA, found Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden leading President Donald Trump in the state, with support from 47 percent of likely voters to 42 percent for Trump, and 6 percent of voters undecided.

That poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.6 percent. It was also off by about 4 percent in each of the last two elections, predicting former President Barack Obama would beat 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney in the state by 11 percentage points in that year’s contest. Obama ultimately won by 7.5 percent. It found Trump leading 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by 3 percentage points, 45-42 percent, in the last presidential election. Clinton prevailed by less than 2 percent.

As of Monday, Biden was up +4.3 points in the RealClearPolitics average.

Minnesota has 10 electoral college votes and is considered a blue state. However, Republicans have targeted it this year as one they would like to win, owing to the fact that Trump came closer to winning it in 2016 than any Republican since 1984. Former Vice President Walter Mondale, who served for 12 years as a Minnesota senator, won the state over former President Ronald Reagan that year by fewer than 4,000 votes, making it the only in the nation he would win.

The state also has a contested race for the Senate seat held by Sen. Tina Smith (D), who is running for reelection. Former Rep. Jason Lewis, who served in the United States House from 2016-18, is facing off against Smith as her Republican challenger. The final KSTP poll found Smith leading Lewis 45-42 percent. The state has not elected a Republican to the Senate since 2002, when former Sen. Paul Wellstone (D) died in a plane crash 11 days before the election. Minnesota Democrats substituted Mondale as their nominee for the position five days later, but he fell short in the general election.

Though exit polling is reported throughout the day, the numbers, including early votes, are not available until after the polls have officially closed. At that time, we will update this post as results come in.

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