When Vice President Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate in August, her goal was to strengthen her standing in the Midwest, a critical region for securing an Electoral College victory in November. Despite her efforts, recent polling suggests that former President Donald Trump has gained some momentum in Walz’s home state.
Harris had maintained a lead over Trump, the Republican nominee, by 8.4 percentage points as of August 19, but her lead has since narrowed to 5.8 points, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average. This shift coincides with increased scrutiny of Walz's record and a series of missteps, which have drawn negative attention.
Walz faced backlash after stating that the Electoral College “needs to go,” a position that contradicts the Harris campaign’s stance. He later retracted the statement, aligning himself with the campaign’s official position. Additionally, Walz's misleading claims regarding his presence in Hong Kong during the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and other personal misrepresentations—including details about his family’s infertility treatments, his National Guard rank, and a past DUI arrest—have raised concerns.
Polling data before and after Walz’s selection as Harris’ running mate show minimal impact on her support in Minnesota. Early polls, conducted after Harris entered the race in July, showed her leading Trump by margins of 6 to 10 points in a two-way race. However, polls conducted after her August 6 announcement of Walz as her running mate indicate a slight tightening of the race, with Harris leading by 5 to 7 points. The margins of error in these polls range from 3.5 to 4.9 percent, indicating some volatility.
For instance, a SurveyUSA poll conducted between September 23 and 26 among 646 likely voters showed Harris leading Trump by 6 points, a decrease from a July poll where she led by 10 points. The margin of error for the September poll was +/- 4.3 percent.
The Republican Party of Minnesota has capitalized on this shift, framing it as evidence that Minnesota voters are “rejecting” the Harris-Walz ticket. Party Chairman David Hann stated that Minnesotans were turning away from Harris and Walz due to the failures of Democratic policies at both the national and state levels.
However, political experts caution against reading too much into these polling fluctuations. Paul Goren, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota, views the shift as “statistical noise” and believes the Harris-Walz campaign is not overly concerned about Minnesota. Goren noted that the Biden-Harris ticket won the state by just over 7 percent in 2020, and current polling trends are consistent with other state and national data, which suggest a closer race in 2024 compared to previous elections.
Costas Panagopoulos, a professor of political science at Northeastern University, echoed similar sentiments, emphasizing that vice presidential candidates typically have limited impact on overall voting preferences. According to Panagopoulos, factors like partisan identity and key issues such as the economy tend to play a more significant role in shaping voter behavior.
Both experts agree that unless Harris loses Minnesota, which would signal broader losses in other battleground and Democratic-leaning states, the current polling data does not indicate a major shift in the race’s dynamics.
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