Et Tu, Minnesota?

Joe Biden’s manifest incompetence is, naturally, driving down his approval ratings. After all, some failings can’t be concealed forever, regardless of how compliant the press may be. Thus his current approval/disapproval numbers in the Rasmussen survey are 42%/56%, with a 47% plurality strongly disapproving. And his disastrous Iowa numbers made headlines last week.

Now, blue Minnesotans are getting into the act: the Star Tribune poll finds Biden under water in the state at 47%/51%. Given Biden’s appalling job performance, that shouldn’t be surprising. But the poll reveals dramatic and, I think, surprising splits.

Start with gender: Minnesota men overwhelmingly disapprove of Biden, by 28%/70%. Those numbers are shockingly bad. But someone needs to get the message to the state’s women, who support Biden by 64%/34%. That can only be explained by the assumption that a great many women are still happy that our president isn’t Donald Trump–an effect that one assumes will wear off over time.

The geographic breakdown is interesting, too. The cities are pro-Biden, with Hennepin and Ramsey counties (Minneapolis and St. Paul) approving 69%/29%. A caveat, though–Hennepin County includes a lot of suburbs, too. But the rest of the metro area has caught on to Biden, by 38%/61%. This may bode well for Republican chances in the suburbs next year. The rural parts of the state, are, as you would expect, intensely anti-Biden.

Finally, this poll finds that the college-educated are more likely to approve of Biden (56%/43%) than the non-college educated (38%/59%). This is more evidence that college makes you stupid.

The Star Tribune poll also tested Governor Tim Walz’s popularity. Walz resembles Biden in some ways; he is a left-wing ideologue who poses as a moderate and is personally a nasty character. The Strib finds that Walz does better than Biden at 49%/44%, but this is the first time Walz has been under 50% approval. His splits closely resemble Biden’s.

There are plenty of reasons to disapprove of Tim Walz, but I suspect that what we see here is a general decline in perceptions of the Democratic Party. The many failures of Biden’s administration are putting down-ticket Democrats in a bad light, even in a blue state like Minnesota.

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