MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A majority of Minnesota residents oppose using taxpayer money to build a new stadium for the Minnesota Vikings, according to a statewide poll.

As debate over where to locate a new stadium heats up in the Legislature during its final weeks, the latest Star Tribune Minnesota Poll (http://bit.ly/kcnED0 ) found that more than 60 percent of Minnesotans surveyed say the Vikings should keep playing in the Metrodome, where they’ve been for 29 years. Nearly three in four respondents say Vikings owner Zygi Wilf should not get public money for a new stadium.

The poll of 806 Minnesotans was done May 2-5 as Ramsey County and Minneapolis separately negotiated with the Vikings over competing plans to host the stadium and help the Vikings build it. The survey has a sampling error of plus or minus 4.7 percentage points. Despite opposition to public funding of a new stadium, 66 percent say the Vikings are at least “somewhat important” to Minnesota.

Supporters of a new stadium predict negative opinions of the project will change once it’s built, similar to the Minnesota Twins and Target Field. A year after the new ballpark opened, the poll for the first time showed a majority of those surveyed favored spending public money on the project. Fifty-five percent now say that public financing of the ballpark was worth it, up from 48 percent in October.

The latest poll shows no clear preference on where to locate a new Vikings stadium. Twenty-four percent prefer a site at or near the Metrodome, 22 percent favor Ramsey County’s Arden Hills, 15 percent would put it near Target Field in downtown Minneapolis and 23 percent are open to building it somewhere else.