Minnesota extends its blue streak in its 13th consecutive presidential election

MINNEAPOLIS — The Minnesota section of the “blue wall” held strong on Election Day 2024, marking the 13th consecutive presidential race in which the Democratic candidate won the state — and the seventh time that candidate lost.

CBS News expects Vice President Kamala Harris to be the winner in Minnesotawhere she has almost 138,000 votes more than President-elect Donald Trump As of Wednesday afternoon, according to the Minnesota Department of State.

While the former president is projected to have lost by more than 4 percentage points in Minnesota, Trump narrowed his margin in the state in the 2020 election when he lost to President Biden by more than 233,000 votes.

The closest Trump came to a possible victory was in Minnesota in 2016, when he lost to Hillary Clinton by just 44,765 votes and about 1.5 percentage points.

Trump's 2016 defeat in Minnesota was not without benefits for Republicans. He was able to flip reliably blue rural counties that voted for President Barack Obama in 2012. Once strongholds of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), they have remained red ever since.

The last Republican presidential candidate to win Minnesota was Richard Nixon in 1972. He beat Democrat George McGovern by about 96,000 votes.

The closest presidential race in Minnesota history was the 1916 matchup between Democrat Woodrow Wilson and Republican Charles Evans Hughes, in which runner-up Hughes won the state by just 392 votes.

Second was the 1984 race between Republican Ronald Reagan and Democratic Vice President Walter Mondale, in which Reagan won by just 3,761 points.

Minnesota was the only state to vote Mondalewho served several terms as one of Minnesota's U.S. senators before being elected vice president to President Jimmy Carter in 1976.

While Minnesota and Illinois ran for blue-wall Midwestern states in this election and received a combined 29 electoral votes for Harris, CBS News predicts Michigan And Wisconsin went red with a total of 25 votes.

Democrats are also expected to lose Blue-Waller's 19 Electoral College votes Pennsylvaniaone of the most sought-after swing states.