Heavy snow and difficult travel expected again, heaviest snow in southern Minnesota

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

On paper, Minnesota voters have plenty of options on the state’s presidential primary ballot. In reality, fewer of the 

candidates that appear on the major-party ballots

 will be actively campaigning when it comes time to count the votes.

Early voting opens Friday ahead of the March 5 primary. It’s just the second try with a primary since lawmakers revived it and subbed it in for a caucus straw poll. The votes will determine which candidates win delegates from Minnesota to their national nominating conventions.

For Democrats, there are nine candidates to choose from, an uncommitted option and a write-in line. For Republicans, there are five candidates and a write-in possibility. The Legal Marijuana Now Party also has five options and a write-in line.

Two of the listed Republicans have already dropped out since the ballot was finalized.

People who have their minds made up can cast ballots between Friday and the close of polls on March 5 — also known as Super Tuesday. 

 to be mailed to a voter’s address or be cast in person at a local election center.

There’s a few things to keep in mind when voting in the presidential primary:

Getting a trove of data on voters interested in their party is a gold mine.

“It’s really a party building exercise,” said Minnesota DFL Chair Ken Martin. “We now have a list of several hundred thousand people who’ve identified as Democrats and our job is to get them more involved in our party than just voting for our candidates.”

Anna Mathews, Minnesota GOP executive director, said her party will use the data it receives from the election in get-out-the-vote efforts. Mathews and GOP Chair David Hann spent the weeks leading up to early voting traveling across the state and hosting training sessions for local GOP leaders to help them find ways to utilize the new data in campaign efforts. 

“Our goal is to have all of our 121 local party units working hard over the next couple of months to turn out as many people as they can,” Mathews said. The party wants to ensure voters “understand how to take advantage of the new laws and how to take advantage of this primary.”

In 2020, parties received a list of every voter who cast a ballot in the presidential primary and the party’s ballot they selected. Lawmakers changed the law to confine the data sharing so that parties will only get the list of voters who took that party’s ballot.

Simon said the change this year is a step in the right direction. 

“The argument has been that this is sort of like a sign in sheet. If a person goes to a political party event, they wouldn’t be surprised or even offended if that entity had a sign in sheet at the door,” Simon said at a news conference Thursday. “But they might be offended, as many were in 2020, if you went to a political party event, they had a sign in sheet and then they just passed around the sign in sheet to other entities. And so at least we pared it down.”

Politics and Government News

Shows

Morning Edition

NewsPartners

Homepage

Election 2024

Ellie Roth

Author

Minnesota’s presidential primary is March 5, but people can vote early or absentee starting Friday. Which ballot voters choose will be available to that political party. 

As early voting in Minnesota’s presidential primary starts, parties await prized data

Go Deeper.

Like this?