Capitol Watch: Poll shows appetite for spending cuts

Minnesotans support cutting spending to deal with deficit

We are about to move into a new phase of the 2025 Minnesota legislative session. Phase one was the chaos caused by Democrat House members not showing up for work during the first month. Phase two is Speaker of the House Lisa Demuth presiding over the House with a 67-66 majority, allowing her committee chairs to take testimony and move bills that reflect the Republican agenda. Expect many of those bills to be voted on by the full (133 members) House this week, with most resulting in a 67-66 partisan vote.

Phase three begins this week with the announcement of the February budget forecast. As we wrote here, this forecast provides the final budget numbers that will be used to put together the state budget. Phase three will really get going the following week after the special election in District 40B on Tuesday, March 11, 2025. The rest of the session will depend on which party prevails in the special. If the Democrat wins, the House will be tied 67-67 with Demuth presiding as Speaker. If the Republican wins, the GOP will have a 68-66 majority in the House and a much stronger place at the bargaining table with the Democratic State Senate and Gov. Tim Walz.

Back to the budget. The December forecast told lawmakers that while the 2026-27 budget is balanced, the next budget is projected to have a $5.1 billion deficit. We’ll find out this week how the February forecast will update those numbers. Will the deficit in 2028-29 grow? The only data point we have to inform that question is the January monthly budget update, which came in 2% below forecast.

The more important question is what policymakers should do about a looming budget deficit. Fortunately, we asked 500 Minnesotans that question in the latest Thinking Minnesota Poll conducted February 11-13, 2025, using a mix of cellphone and landline interviewing. Sixty percent of Minnesotans said spending cuts are the way to close the budget gap.

Throwing out for the moment the polarized camps of Democrats and Republicans, policymakers might ask, “What do regular people think?” The answer: 73% of Independents support cutting spending. Only 8% support raising taxes. The only participants in our poll who want to raise taxes are Democrats. Of the 114 respondents who chose this option (23%), 105 of them identified as Democrats. When it comes to spending and taxes, Democrats like Tim Walz are out of step with most Minnesotans. (If only they voted that way!)

Since 60% said they preferred spending cuts to tax increases, we next asked the billion-dollar question: where would you cut? Presented with the four largest areas of the state budget (health and welfare programs, K-12 education, higher education, and public safety programs), 35% of respondents chose to cut higher education first. Health and welfare programs and public safety programs were second and third at 24% and 23% respectively.

Your authors were surprised that higher education came out on top of this list. In future polls we may have to delve into what’s behind this spending prioritization. But the larger point remains: Minnesotans want Gov. Walz and the legislature to use spending cuts, not tax increases, to balance current and future state budgets.