Amy Klobuchar’s Chances of Beating Republican Rivals in Minnesota: Poll

Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar holds a double-digit lead over a pair of Republicans in her bid for a fourth term in the U.S. Senate.

In a survey conducted by Minneapolis’ KSTP TV and SurveyUSA, Klobuchar leads Republican-endorsed candidate Royce White 49 percent to 35 percent with 12 percent undecided. Joe Fraser, who is challenging White in a primary in August, trails Klobuchar 49 percent to 36 percent with 11 percent undecided.

Both Republicans get about 80 percent support among GOP voters, but the incumbent Democrat leads Fraser by 21 points and White by 26 points among Minnesota independent voters. White and Fraser will face off in August’s Republican primary.

Klobuchar has won her last two reelection bids with more than 60 percent of the vote.

“Royce White and Joe Fraser have almost identical numbers against Amy Klobuchar and they’re not well known by most people in Minnesota,” Carleton College political analyst Steven Schier told KSTP. “You’ve got the base vote of the Republican Party reflected in this survey. The problem for both Royce White and Joe Fraser is convincing those people who are not part of the Republican base to vote for them and they may not have the record or the resources to do that.”

The SurveyUSA poll interviewed 800 Minnesota adults between June 12-16. Of the adults, 703 were identified as being registered to vote; of the registered voters, 626 were determined to be likely to vote in November. The poll includes 41 percent of respondents who identify themselves as Democrats, 36 percent as Republican and 20 percent as independents.

White, a one-time Minnesota “Mr. Basketball,” won the state Republican Party’s endorsement on May 18 with 67 percent of the vote on the first ballot. White, who is 6-foot-8, has never held public office and ran unsuccessfully in a Republican primary two years ago seeking to challenge U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar. He was introduced at the GOP convention in St. Paul by Steve Bannon, a close ally of former President Donald Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee.

Fraser, a former naval intelligence officer, looked to be the clear favorite to challenge Klobuchar until White’s entry into the fray last month.

Klobuchar, who entered the Democratic presidential primary in 2020, has served as the senior Senator from Minnesota since 2007. She was the first woman elected to represent the state in the Senate.

Minnesota has emerged as a potential target for Trump’s presidential campaign. Chris LaCivita, one of Trump’s senior 2024 presidential campaign advisers, told NBC News last month that he believes the Trump campaign has “a real, real opportunity in expanding the map” in Minnesota.

Republicans have not had great luck in Minnesota in recent presidential elections, as the North Star State has two Democratic senators, Klobuchar and Tina Smith, and a Democratic Governor, Tim Walz.

It has not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1972, when Richard Nixon won nearly every state, sans Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. Even in 2016, when Trump flipped most other midwestern states, Minnesota still narrowly backed Hillary Clinton.

However, independent polling suggests the 2024 presidential election could be close in Minnesota.

A Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy poll conducted June 3-5, sponsored by the Minneapolis StarTribune, Minnesota Public Radio News and KARE TV, found Biden with just a four-point lead over Trump.

That four percentage point difference falls within the survey’s margin of error, making the race a toss-up—especially when considering that 7 percent of likely voters say they are still undecided, and 6 percent say they are supporting independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr.