Minnesota election results: Joe Biden wins 2020 state race

Voters reject president’s ‘law and order’ message following mass protests in wake of George Floyd killing

Joe Biden has won Minnesota, a state that Donald Trump has sought to swing Republican after his narrow defeat in 2016, according to the Associated Press.

The president has made Minnesota a critical target in his 2020 re-election campaign following his loss to Hillary Clinton in 2016 by less than 2 per cent.

A Republican has not won the state since 1972.

The state has emerged as the nucleus of a renewed racial justice movement following the police killing of George Floyd and widespread protests that followed, which the president invoked in his apocalyptic vision of a nation torn apart by violence and a “law and order” message that defined his 2020 campaign.

Progressive Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress and a routine target of the president’s attacks, won her re-election in a district that serves Minneapolis.

With 85 per cent of the expected vote counted, the Associated Press called the state for Mr Biden, leading by roughly 4 percentage over Mr Trump. Outstanding votes won’t be enough to defeat the former vice president.

State Republicans were dealt a significant blow during 2018 midterm elections, when Minnesota Democrats flipped two suburban congressional districts and took control of the state House with victories in suburban, Trump-leaning areas.

As the state reached its highest-ever single-day coronavirus case count on Friday, the president attacked the state’s governor Tim Walz for limiting his campaign rally attendance before a brief campaign speech to the roughly 250 people in attendance.

“All because the governor wants to play games,” the president said before shaking hands and tossing campaign hats to supporters in an overflow area at a rally at the Rochester International Airport on Friday.

“He’s a weak governor, he’s done a terrible job, he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing," he said. 

Following a 22-minute speech racing through his applause lines, the president returned to Air Force One.

In a rally earlier that day in the state, the Democratic candidate criticised the president’s response to the public health crisis, including attacks against infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci.

“Dr Fauci called for a mask mandate last week, this isn’t a political statement like those ugly folks over there beeping their horns, this is a patriotic duty for God sake,” Mr Biden said.

But the president would reserve his campaign’s message in Minnesota to target the uprisings against police brutality, hoping his “law and order” message would resonate with suburban voters watching protests from afar.

In September, the president told a rally crowd: "If I lose Minnesota, I’m never coming back."