By David Montgomery

St. Paul Pioneer Press

Is Minnesota now a toss-up state?

That’s the verdict from election-tracker site Real Clear Politics this week, which moved Minnesota out of the “Leans Clinton” category in its analysis of the presidential race between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump.

If Minnesota is a toss-up, though, the campaigns aren’t acting like it.

Trump made campaign stops in neighboring Iowa and Wisconsin on Wednesday, but he skipped Minnesota.

Clinton also appeared in Iowa on Thursday but skipped Minnesota — though her campaign did dispatch Anne Holton, wife of vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine, to an early voting event Thursday at St. Paul’s World of Beer. And Bernie Sanders, who challenged her in the Democratic primary, will campaign for her in Minnesota later this week.

Minnesota has voted Democratic in 10 straight presidential elections.

Polls indicate Trump is likely to win Iowa, where he has a 5 percentage-point lead in the Real Clear Politics average of presidential race surveys. Wisconsin is a state he hopes to make competitive, even though Hillary Clinton has a 5-point Real Clear Politics advantage there.

But that same poll-averaging service shows an even closer race in Minnesota, with Clinton up by just 4.3 points. That figure is based on a Star Tribune poll that had Clinton leading 44-38 percent Sept. 12-14, a KSTP/SurveyUSA poll that had her up 46-39 percent Sept. 16-20 and a Gravis Marketing survey last week that showed Clinton and Trump tied, 43-43.

Why isn’t Clinton doing better in a state Democrats usually win handily? Sasha Issenberg and Steven Yaccino of Bloomberg Politics identify one possible culprit: diehard Sanders supporters who haven’t followed their candidate over to the Clinton camp.

Sanders beat Clinton in Minnesota by more than 20 points in the March 1 primary, and undecided voters here are disproportionately young and white — a demographic Sanders dominated.

Money in, money out

U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen had a good news, bad news situation this week with regard to the torrent of outside spending the Republican congressman is facing in Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District.

The Democratic-leaning House Majority PAC had reserved $600,000 in airtime for the 3rd District — but this week canceled all of that in what a gloating Paulsen campaign called “a huge retreat” for Democrats.

But another Democratic group, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, amped up its 3rd District spending this week with a $367,000 buy against Paulsen.

Paulsen is facing Democrat Terri Bonoff in the November election. His seat is a top Democratic target as they make a long-shot bit to take over the House of Representatives, but polls and fundraising had shown Paulsen in a solid position. The Cook Political Report ranks the race as “Lean Republican.”

Minnesota’s three competitive House races have seen more outside spending than all but one other state. The 8th District battle between Democratic Rep. Rick Nolan and Republican Stewart Mills has received the largest amount.
—Distributed by Tribune Content Agency