SELMA, Alabama — Sen. Amy Klobuchar did not exactly exude confidence ahead of the Democratic presidential primary in her home state of Minnesota.
What should be an easy win for Klobuchar is being threatened by 2020 Democratic presidential front-runner Bernie Sanders, who has made the state a priority ahead of Super Tuesday.
“Minnesota is one of the states, that right now, it’s just between Sen. Sanders and me in my state. I’m leading him right now, but that’s going to be an interesting race,” Klobuchar said Sunday during a campaign stop in Alabama.
Klobuchar, who has represented Minnesota in the Senate since 2007, had a 6 percentage point lead over Sanders in a recent MPR News/Star Tribune poll. The Vermont senator won Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party caucuses in 2016. But more than 20% of voters are still undecided, leaving the outcome of primary up for grabs.
Sanders is hosting his final rally before Super Tuesday in Minnesota, a sign of the importance his campaign has put on the state that awards 75 pledged delegates.
“We are overwhelmed and moved by the groundswell of support from so many different leaders and communities across Minnesota,” Sanders’s Minnesota state director Reed Millar said in a statement Monday.
After her visit to Alabama on Sunday, Klobuchar canceled a rally in Minnesota after it was derailed by protesters.
Without the Sanders threat, Klobuchar would likely be a shoo-in to win the primary. She has never lost an election, easily winning her three Senate campaigns by wide margins. President Trump narrowly lost the state in 2016. Two years later, in the 2018 midterm elections, Klobuchar won 43 Minnesota counties Trump had won.
