The slimmest margin

Minnesota is a state divided — more and more straight down the middle.

In recent years, many observers have said that our politics are becoming more polarized, with voters gravitating to the left and right ends of the political spectrum, leaving fewer in the middle. Is this happening in Minnesota?

Since 2018, we have been surveying Minnesotans with our Thinking Minnesota Poll. The quarterly survey is conducted by Meeting Street Insights, a top national pollster. In most of those surveys, as part of our background information on respondents, we have asked whether they consider themselves to be very conservative, somewhat conservative, moderate, somewhat liberal, or very liberal. We also ask whether they are strong DFL, not-so-strong DFL, lean DFL, Independent, lean Republican, not-so-strong Republican, or strong Republican. This gives us a body of research that allows us to identify trends over the last seven years.

It turns out that the data do indeed suggest growing polarization, but the story is more complicated than that.

Many people think of Minnesota as a blue state. So, it may be surprising to learn that there are considerably more self-described conservatives in Minnesota than liberals. This has been true throughout the 2018-2025 polling period.

In 2018, an average of 34 percent of respondents described themselves as some variety of conservative, while 28 percent said they were liberal. That rough proportion has persisted: In 2024, conservatives outnumbered liberals by 38 to 28 percent, and in our polling in 2025, by 35 to 31 percent.

Meanwhile — and this is where we see evidence of a modestly growing polarization — the percentage who describe themselves as moderates has declined somewhat, from 35 percent in 2018 and 36 percent in 2019 to 33 percent in 2024 and 32 percent so far in 2025.

This is where we again see a trend toward polarization. In 2018, 25 percent of respondents described themselves as Independents. In 2019, it was 21 percent. But the number of Independents has steadily dwindled, so that in 2024 it was down to 16 percent, and so far in 2025, 15 percent.

Where are those disappearing Independents going? To both parties in roughly equal proportions. In 2024 and so far in 2025, 44 percent of respondents say they lean DFL, and 40 percent lean Republican. So in Minnesota, we do see a trend toward voters aligning themselves with one party or the other rather than being Independent, as well as a trend toward describing themselves as either liberal or conservative, rather than moderate.

Most people seem to assume that the trend toward polarization is a bad thing, but I am not sure this is correct. Historically, I think some people who describe themselves as moderates and as independents are really people who don’t pay much attention to current events. In recent years, our nation’s political life has been intense, and that has been true in Minnesota, too. I suspect that what mostly drives the trend toward alignment with left or right, and with Republicans and Democrats, is that more and more people are becoming engaged in current events and political debate. And that is a good thing, not a bad thing.

The other takeaway from our seven years of polling is that Minnesota is a very closely balanced state. Are we blue? There are only a few percent more Democrats than Republicans. Are we red? There are somewhat more conservatives than liberals. This makes for tightly contested elections and helps to explain why our legislature is as closely balanced as it can possibly be, with 100 Republicans and 101 Democrats. Ongoing shifts in political orientation or partisan alignment, however modest, could tip this balance sharply in either direction.