WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump proceed to be locked in a good race in Minnesota, with few undecided voters left to spice up either candidate.

A brand new MinnPost-Embold Research poll showed Harris with a slight edge over Trump, 48%-45% within the state, a result that was virtually unchanged from Harris’ 49%-45% lead last month in the same poll. Each results were throughout the poll’s 2.4 percentage point margin of error.

One reason there’s no movement amongst Minnesota’s likely voters? Only a few undecided voters remain this late within the campaign cycle; only 2% of the poll’s respondents said they were undecided, down from 3% last month.

“Between September and October, the numbers are essentially unchanged,” Embold Research pollster Jessica Mason said.

Five percent of the poll’s respondents said they plan to vote for somebody apart from Harris or Trump.

The poll also showed that independents favored Trump over Harris 36%-27%. One other 24% percent of those independent voters said they preferred “one other candidate.”

Meanwhile, the poll detected a big change in Sen. JD Vance’s favorability rankings. In September, his unfavorability rating was minus 16%, meaning more respondents had a “very unfavorable” or “somewhat unfavorable” view of Trump’s running mate than a positive view.

But that unfavorability rating was cut in half – to minus 8%  – in the newest MinnPost-Embold poll.

Mason said the surge in Vance’s popularity was attributable, no less than partly, to his debate with Gov. Tim Walz on Oct. 1. Mason said the vice presidential debate, which was characterised by its civility, “put Vance’s face in front of voters” and introduced him to the nation in a positive way.

Snap polls taken just after the controversy, including a CBS/YouGov poll of respondents who watched the controversy, indicated each candidates increased their favorability — though more viewers still held Walz in higher regard than Vance.

Walz favorability ‘gives Harris small lift’ 

The newest MinnPost-Embold Research poll also showed there was little movement so far as the favorability of other candidates who're at the highest of the Democratic and Republican tickets this yr. And, once more, just one candidate, Walz, had a positive favorability rating, 2%. Harris and Trump continued to have negative favorability rankings.

Harris’ unfavorable rating was minus 5% and Trump’s was minus 11%.

Steven Schier, professor emeritus of political science at Carleton College, said Walz’s high favorability rankings “probably ends in a small lift” for Harris. 

And Schier said Trump’s unfavorable rating, which is greater than twice as large as that for Harris, hurts him. 

“Trump has never been very fashionable in Minnesota,” he said. 

In 2016, Minnesota’s GOP presidential primary voters favored Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. As well as, no Republican presidential candidate has won Minnesota since Richard Nixon carried the state in 1972.

Still, Schier said “we’ve got a really tight race here.”

The shortage of considerable movement within the presidential race in Minnesota is mirrored in national polls and in polls of swing states that can likely resolve the Nov. 5 election. The newest averaging of national polls by FiveThirtyEight shows Harris with a slim 48%-46.6% advantage over Trump, with little change within the neck-and-neck nature of this race over several weeks.

Schier also said small shifts in polling of the presidential race are the results of “normal errors in survey research.”

The MinnPost-Embold Research poll surveyed 1,734 likely 2024 Minnesota voters between Oct. 16-22. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.

A gender ‘canyon’ 

An enormous gender gap continues within the presidential race.

The newest MinnPost-Embold research survey showed Harris is up by 13 percentage points with women and Trump is up by 12 percentage points with men.

“That’s not a spot, it’s a canyon,” Schier said.

The professor also said “the agendas for men and ladies are different,” resulting in the difference in support for the candidates.

Based on the survey, 26% of men said abortion is a top concern while 42% of ladies cited abortion a top concern. And in terms of inflation, 69% of men said it was a top concern in contrast to 53% of ladies.

The geographical divide in Minnesota could also be even greater. Respondents in Greater Minnesota overwhelmingly said they supported Trump over Harris, 64%-31%, a response that was flipped in Minneapolis and St. Paul where Harris was favored 69%-20%. Within the seven-county metro area excluding Minneapolis and St. Paul, Harris had a narrow 48%-45% lead over Trump.

One profit for Harris: 19% of respondents said they've already voted — overwhelmingly for her. Of those early Minnesota voters, 70% said they forged their ballot for Harris, while only 27% said they voted for Trump.

Schier said the strong early vote for Harris means “you’re banking your vote early and also you don’t must rely on weather and turnout on Election Day — and that’s an enormous advantage.”

Based on the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office, 565,909 Minnesotans had forged their ballots as of Oct. 24. But that’s about half of the roughly 1.2 million early ballots that had been submitted right now in 2020, when the pandemic kept many from public polling places.

Schier also said Harris has one other advantage — a powerful  Democratic ground game within the state. “The DFL is in a greater position to get voters out on Election Day,” he said.