Minnesota’s 71 pledged delegates up for grabs on Tuesday pale in comparison to megastates such as California and Texas, but front-runner Bernie Sanders has a strong strategic incentive to campaign there.
A Minnesota win by the Vermont senator would effectively end the campaign of his 2020 Democratic rival Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota senator struggling in the polls ahead of March 3, Super Tuesday, when 14 states and entities hold primaries.
On the day before Super Tuesday, Sanders will travel to St. Paul for a get-out-the-vote concert and rally. The campaign stop will be his last before voting begins, sending a clear message to Klobuchar that she can’t take anything for granted in her home state.
On Wednesday, Klobuchar was asked by CNN’s Dana Bash whether a win in her home state is necessary for her campaign to continue, particularly as she has yet to place better than third place in any primary contest so far.
“Oh, I never set litmus tests, but I know I’m going to win Minnesota. So, that’s not a factor. I think I’m ahead by 10 points in two polls that just came out in the last week by the newspaper and another one,” she said. “And the key part is not necessarily primary. The key part is general election.”
Klobuchar is correct that she currently leads in polling, but not by 10 points. The latest survey from the state released by Minnesota Public Radio/Star Tribune showed her leading the field with 29% support, with Sanders in second at 23%. No other candidate broke 11%.
And Klobuchar didn’t exactly earn a vote of confidence in her chances from the state’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party chairman, Ken Martin. “No one knows for sure what the landscape is going to even look like by the time we get to March 3,” Martin told Minnesota Public Radio. “This is very fluid … every single day, every single hour, this race changes.”
The latest three polls from the state this month hasn’t found her lead greater than six points, either.
A report released Thursday also found that Sanders had overtaken Klobuchar in small-dollar donations in the state, raising more than $453,000 in January through the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue. Klobuchar raised just under $403,000.
This year will be Minnesota’s first primary since 1992. In previous cycles, the states opted for a caucus until then-Gov. Mark Dayton signed a bill reinstating a traditional primary.
That change puts Sanders, who usually thrives in nontraditional voting contests, at a further disadvantage. In 2016, Sanders won the state with nearly 62% of the vote, overperforming the latest poll from the state by 35 points.
Sanders will have help from the state’s attorney general, Keith Ellison, who backed him in 2016 when he was a House member, and his firebrand replacement in Congress Ilhan Omar, who represents the Minneapolis-based 5th District. He also recently won the support of Emgage PAC, a progressive Muslim advocacy group with deep ties to Minnesota’s immigrant communities.
But Klobuchar might not be the only candidate who has to worry about competing on her home turf. Sanders also announced several rallies on Friday and Saturday in Massachusetts, which some polls show him narrowly beating Sen. Elizabeth Warren with 21% to 20% support.
