Oddly Hillary is beating Feel the Bern.
Republican Marco Rubio and Democrat Hillary Clinton are early favorites among Minnesota voters in the presidential race, according to a new Star Tribune poll.
Clinton holds a commanding 34-point lead over rival Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, but the statewide poll of 800 registered voters shows that the former secretary of state could face trouble against two top Republicans. In head-to-head matchups, Clinton is essentially tied with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and trails Rubio, the Florida U.S. senator. Clinton tops Donald Trump by 5 percentage points.
Minnesota GOP voters appear deeply divided, with Rubio’s lead within the poll’s margin of sampling error. Cruz and New York developer Donald Trump are each capturing a sizable share of voters. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie trail further behind.
The poll showing Clinton’s apparent challenges in Minnesota against Republicans comes as Sanders appears to be surging in Iowa, where voters will caucus Feb. 1, the first in the nation to do so. On Tuesday, Sanders will visit Duluth and St. Paul as he works to build his Minnesota support.
Finding a Democratic candidate who can beat Republicans is foremost on the mind of Debby Ortman, of Hermantown, Minn. Ortman, a “die-hard” liberal who is more progressive than Clinton, nevertheless believes “Hillary has a better chance of taking on Republicans.”
But in a hypothetical matchup between Clinton and Rubio, Clinton trails the Florida senator by nine points, 40 to 49, with 11 percent undecided. In a matchup between Clinton and Cruz, the poll showed her trailing by two points, with 12 percent undecided.
The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
The Star Tribune poll is among the first to show Rubio leading the GOP race in a state. Recent Iowa surveys show Trump and Cruz vying for first place. Trump has a large lead in New Hampshire, polls show.
“A lot of people are looking at Rubio right now to see if he emerges,” said Joseph Peschek, a political scientist at Hamline University in St. Paul. “A lot of Republican voters aren’t sure who to support, and I think they will be watching Iowa and New Hampshire and the early contests to see who shakes out.”
The poll suggests that Rubio has wide appeal among Republicans seeking an alternative to Trump and Cruz who could win over independents in the general election.
“In Minnesota, we have libertarians, social conservatives and fiscal conservatives. He strikes me as that big-tent Republican who can bring people together,” said Jen Niska, an Anoka County mother and Rubio backer. “He’s conservative … and he’s approachable and nice.”
Rubio had the highest favorable name recognition among the GOP field in the poll, at 38 percent. Bush and Trump had the highest unfavorable name recognition at 61 percent each. The number of Minnesotans who have an unfavorable view of Clinton is much higher, at 52 percent, than who share the same view of Rubio, although 21 percent of respondents had yet to form an opinion of him.