Minnesota Election Results: Obama and Bachmann Win, Gay Marriage Foes Lose

Impact

President Barack Obama won Minnesota’s 10 electoral votes, decisively by 8 points and exceeding the final day polls which had the president leading by only 5.2 points. Obama received 53% of the vote, while Romney received 43%. Obama won the state by 10 points, 54% to 44% in 2008. Going into the election, Romney had begun to feel that Minnesota was slipping away from Obama and was in play as a swing state. However, Democrats had pointed out that Minnesota had been a true blue state since 1976 — including being the only state to vote for favorite son alter Mondale in Reagan's 49-state landslide in 1984. According to The San Francisco Chronicle, that's the longest current Democratic win streak of any state.

Amy Klobuchar won re-election to a second term in the Senate, easily defeating Republican challenger Kurt Bills. In the House, 5 Democrats and 3 Republicans won their respective races. In a race that was not called until commuters had started to work this morning, Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann narrowly held on to her seat in the Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District defeating challenger Jim Graves. Bachmann won 51% of the vote to Graves’ 49%. Democratic challenger Rick Nolan defeated incumbent Republican Chip Cravaack in Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District. Nolan won 54.5% of the vote to Cravaack’s 45.5%. Congressional Representatives Tim Waltz (D) in the 1st, John Kline (R) in the 2nd, Erik Paulsen (R) in the 3rd, Betty McCollum (D) in the 4th Keith Ellison (D) in the 5th District, and Collin Peterson (D) in the 7th won reelection.

Both of the legislatively referred constitutional amendments on the state ballots were rejected by the voter. Voters said no to amendment 1, a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and to amendment 2, a requirement to present a photo ID for voting.

Minnesota looks like it will fall short of its goal of 3 million voters this election, but turnout seems to be large enough to continue its streak of leading the nation in voter participation.

Read PolicyMic's Minnesota live blog here