Is Minnesota on the right or wrong track? St. Cloud State survey shows divide
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A new statewide survey released by St. Cloud State University indicates a split among Minnesotans over whether the state and nation are heading in the right direction.
The findings are based on telephone interviews conducted from Oct. 10-30 with a representative sample of 235 Minnesota adults.
About 40 percent said the state is heading in the right direction, while 46 percent said Minnesota is on the wrong track. That difference is within the survey’s margin of error, making it a statistical dead heat, said Jim Cottrill, an associate professor at St. Cloud State.
What was clear from the findings is significantly more Democrats — about 71 percent — feel positive about the state's direction, compared to just 17 percent of Republicans.
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The survey found Minnesotans’ attitudes about the nation’s trajectory are more pessimistic. Just 20 percent felt the U.S. is heading in the right direction, compared with 70 percent who believe the country is on the wrong track.
The scientific survey has been conducted annually since 1980 by St. Cloud State students under the direction of the university’s survey research center, which Cottrill co-directs.
This year the researchers struggled to get enough respondents, especially those who identify as Republican or conservative. The survey had 235 respondents, their lowest number ever.
“Some of the theories out there are that there's just mistrust of institutions, that polarization is driven up,” Cottrill said. “Republicans are less trustful of institutions, certainly universities.”
As a result of the smaller sample size, Cottrill said he’s less confident drawing conclusions from the response to some questions, including who the respondents planned to vote for in the race for governor and other statewide contests.
Although more respondents appeared to favor Democratic candidates, a significant number said they didn’t know who they would vote for, especially for secretary of state and attorney general.
“In terms of the House race results, it makes so we're really just guessing,” Cottrill said. If all of the undecided respondents ended up voting for Republican candidates, it could swing the results, he said.
On some questions, the difference in responses were large enough to be statistically significant.
One example: The survey found a difference in how important the issue of abortion is among respondents who identify as Democrats or Republicans.
Of Democratic respondents, 96 percent said abortion was either "very important" or “somewhat important” in determining who they would vote for. The number was lower for Republicans, about 58 percent.
Cottrill said the abortion issue was rated more highly among women who took part in the survey than men.
“So definitely, we're seeing that there's some male-female differences in terms of voting patterns and what motivates their vote,” he said.
Meanwhile, inflation was cited as important by just over half of Democrats and all Republican respondents.
The survey also found sharp differences of opinion between Republicans and Democrats on other issues including immigration, climate change and what’s being taught in schools.
Respondents differed widely in how they rated the job performance of state and national elected leaders. Not a single Republican in the sample approved of President Biden’s job performance, while 69 percent of Democrats rated him as either “excellent” or “pretty good.” For Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, 83 percent of Democrats gave him a favorable review; 6 percent of Republicans approved of his performance.