The political spotlight was on Minnesota this weekend in the race for the White House as thousands of supporters flocked to St. Cloud to see former President Donald Trump’s rally at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center.

Trump criticized his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, accusing her and fellow Democrats of being soft on crime. He also repeated the false claim that he activated the Minnesota National Guard after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 — not Gov. Tim Walz.

KSTP Chief Political Reporter Tom Hauser got an exclusive one-on-one interview with Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, who spoke before Trump and later introduced him.

Earlier in the week, Vice President Kamala Harris held the first rally of her presidential campaign in neighoring Wisconsin, where polls continue to show a tight race. She immediately went after Trump, invoking her past as a prosecutor and state attorney general to hit on the former president’s 34 felony convictions in a New York hush money case.

And now that Harris has gained enough pledged delegates to be the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee for president, our latest KSTP/SurveyUSA poll indicates she holds an early 10-point lead over Trump among Minnesota voters.

Later in the show, former DFL state Sen. Ember Reichgott Junge and Republican strategist Brian McDaniel join us to break down the current state of the presidential race.