Control of the Minnesota House will be determined in 134 individual races across the state, but our latest KSTP/SurveyUSA poll gives us a broader look at how Minnesotans are likely to vote in those House races.

In our poll conducted June 12 to 16, Democrats had a two-point lead over Republicans when respondents were asked who they were “generally more inclined to vote for, a Republican, a Democrat” or candidate of another party. The DFL lead of 47% to 45% is a reversal of last month’s poll when Republicans had a two-point edge, 45% to 43%.

“Republicans still have a lead among independents, but that’s gone from a 10-point lead down to a four-point lead and that lead needs to increase if Republicans are going to take the state House,” says Steven Schier, a Carleton College political analyst. Democrats have a six-seat majority and Republicans need to flip four seats to take control of the House.

Among key groups of voters, Republicans lead Democrats 40% to 36% among independents, down from a 10-point lead last month. Meanwhile, among suburban voters, Democrats now lead by seven, 49% to 42%, after trailing Republicans by three points last month. “Also suburbanites’ number two issue is abortion and that’s true for the residents of Minneapolis and St. Paul so the suburbs look more like the central cities and that’s not good news for Republicans,” says Schier.

There also continues to be a huge gender gap between the two parties. Democrats lead by 20 points among females, 56% to 36%, while Republicans lead by 14 among men, 53% to 39%.

Schier says the battle for all these voters will rely in large part on campaign financing. In recent campaign finance filings, the House DFL Caucus has about $1.15 million in cash, while the House GOP Caucus reports $787,000.

“I think money is very important in very close races and we’ll have very close House races and the DFL has a very important financial advantage in those races,” Schier said.

Among poll respondents, 41% identified themselves as Democrats, 36% Republican and 20% independent.

SurveyUSA interviewed 800 adults from the state of Minnesota 06/12/24 through 06/16/24. Of the adults, 703 were identified as being registered to vote; of the registered voters, 626 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.