Both nominees for president visited Minnesota to kick off a final weekend of campaigning before Tuesday’s general election.
President Donald Trump held an invite-only event at the Rochester International Airport on Friday. While it was capped to the first 250 people to meet state guidelines intended to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus, hundreds more attended the spillover event.
"This is a state that has been poorly run for too long," Trump told people assembled at the event. He said supporters could swing the state to vote for a Republican presidential candidate for the first time since a majority of Minnesota voters supported Richard Nixon in 1972.
Democratic presidential nominee former Vice President Joe Biden made his second trip to Minnesota since securing the party’s nomination.
Biden, at his event Friday in St. Paul, urged his supporters to vote, calling it their “duty.”
ADVERTISEMENT
He also outlined what he said is the duty of the president.
“I will work as hard for those who don’t support me as for those who do. That’s the job of a president,” Biden said.
Trump’s stop was at the heart of one of the tightest congressional races in the country.
DFL challenger Dan Feehan held multiple events over the weekend, including an event in support of veterans with DFL Rep. Angie Craig in Pine Island on Saturday.
Also on Saturday, incumbent Congressman Jim Hagedorn attended a parade in St. Peter in support of Republican candidates and law enforcement officers.
Hagedorn is scheduled to campaign in Steele and Faribault counties Monday.
Feehan will be in Rochester on Monday to thank and rally volunteers and supporters.
The late push comes as early voting across the state is up from the last presidential election cycle.
ADVERTISEMENT
As of Friday, about 388,000 Minnesotans had requested absentee ballots but had not submitted them.
Overall, early voting — measured by the total number of ballots that have been cast and accepted — this year is equal to around 53% of Minnesota’s total 2016 turnout, and represents 38% of all eligible voters.
Those rates trail the early voting rates of many other battleground states, such as Texas, where nearly half of eligible voters have already cast ballots; or Florida, where just over 50% have. Minnesota even trails Wisconsin, where almost 40% of eligible voters have already voted.
In the 2016 presidential race, Minnesota had the highest voter turnout in the nation: 74.1% of eligible voters.
So far, Minnesota’s early ballots have disproportionately come from counties with lots of Democrats. More than half of registered voters have already cast ballots in Hennepin and Ramsey, the two biggest DFL strongholds in the state.
In Republican strongholds like Sherburne County, less than 28% have voted.
But DFL-heavy counties also account for more unsubmitted ballots than other counties. Nearly 13% of Hennepin County’s registered voters have an absentee ballot they haven’t yet submitted, compared to 7% of Sherburne County’s.
These early voting totals account for people who requested an absentee ballot but — as is allowed in Minnesota — then later voted early in person. In those cases, the earlier absentee ballot is canceled, meaning each voter only accounts for at most one requested and returned ballot.
ADVERTISEMENT
The secretary of state will release final counts of absentee ballots requested and accepted on Monday. The remaining unsubmitted ballots could be in transit, or they could belong to voters who’ve decided to vote in person on Election Day instead.
Minnesota still plans to count all absentee ballots that are postmarked by Election Day and arrive at county election offices by Nov. 10. But this week’s federal court ruling has raised the possibility that ballots which haven’t arrived by Nov. 3 might be thrown out. Election officials have been ordered to keep these late-arriving ballots separate so they can be discarded if a later decision annuls them.
