Politics and Government News

Joe Biden's Minnesota presidential primary win in three charts

A man speaks to a crowd from a stage.
Democratic presidential hopeful former Vice President Joe Biden, flanked by his wife Jill (left) and sister Valerie, addresses a Super Tuesday event in Los Angeles on Tuesday.
Frederic J. Brown | AFP via Getty Images

Sen. Bernie Sanders has long argued that his campaign “can bring millions of people into the political process who normally do not vote.” On Tuesday, Minnesota turnout jumped by 27 percent from the state’s last DFL primary election — and Sanders lost anyway.

Voter turnout was up the most in the the Twin Cities metro, where Sanders was hoping to rack up votes with a concentration of the most liberal voters. It wasn’t enough.

Graphic

Hennepin County saw 72,000 more Democratic voters than the state’s 2018 primary, but former Vice President Joe Biden edged out a 34.5 percent to 33.2 percent victory there. Ramsey County turnout jumped by 24,000, and Sanders won it only narrowly.

2020 DFL votes soared in metro

Minnesota’s last competitive Democratic primary, the 2018 gubernatorial race that saw then-Rep. Tim Walz beat the more progressive state lawmaker Erin Murphy, saw a total of 583,735 votes, compared to 744,470 on Tuesday.

The 2020 results in some way mirrored 2018, with Walz fighting Murphy to a draw in Hennepin and Ramsey Counties and racking up votes elsewhere in the state.

A chart showing total votes by party in Tuesday's primary