After what many consider a successful Democratic National Convention in Chicago where Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz launched their campaign as running mates, our new KSTP/SurveyUSA poll shows Harris’ lead in Minnesota cut in half from a month ago.

According to our poll, Harris now leads Republican Donald Trump by five points, 48% to 43%, with four percent preferring another candidate and five percent undecided. Last month, Harris, in her first appearance in our poll as the Democratic presidential nominee, had a 10-point lead, 50% to 40%.

“I think you see in the national polls that Kamala Harris is getting sort of a post-convention bump,” says Brian McClung, communications director for former Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty. “So the opposite has occurred in your SurveyUSA poll, but I think this is where we expect the race to be.”

Former Minnesota DFL Party Chair Mike Erlandson agrees, saying the 10-point lead for Harris last month might have been the result of excitement about a shake-up in the race with President Joe Biden dropping out.

“She’s in good shape in Minnesota, and frankly, the Democratic and Republican conventions happening, adding Tim Walz to the ballot, everybody’s paying attention now, right? So if I was those guys, I’d be excited to be up by five points in Minnesota.”

There is still a big gender gap in the race, with Harris leading by 18 points among women, 55% to 37%, and Trump leading among men by six, 48% to 42%.

“Women in this country, particularly in the swing congressional districts and the districts that are closer to 50-50, make all of the difference,” says Erlandson. McClung agrees that Trump needs to close that gap to win Minnesota.

“My old boss is the last Republican to get elected statewide,” McClung says of Pawlenty. “He was a suburban Republican who did well with suburban voters and suburban women.”

Our poll also shows Harris leads in urban areas 57% to 34% and in suburbs 53% to 39%. Trump leads in rural areas of Minnesota 54% to 37%.

Minnesota “likely voters” we surveyed had a more positive view of Walz as a vice presidential candidate than they do of J.D. Vance, Trump’s running mate. In our survey, 52% say the choice of Walz was excellent or good with another 46% saying he’s a fair or poor choice. As for Vance, 38% view his selection as excellent or good and 55% as fair or poor.

SurveyUSA interviewed 800 adults from the state of Minnesota 08/27/24 through 08/29/24. Of the adults, 704 were identified as being registered to vote; of the registered voters, 635 were determined by SurveyUSA to be likely to vote in the November general election and were asked the substantive questions which follow. This research was conducted online, using nonprobability sample of online adult panelists chosen randomly by Lucid Holdings LLC of New Orleans. The combined pool of survey respondents was weighted to US Census ACS targets for gender, age, race, education, and home ownership.

Of the presidential poll respondents, 40% identified themselves as Democrats, 35% as Republicans and 22% as independents.