Split tickets vanish as voters choose party alignment

Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s moderate politics have helped her win votes in every corner of Minnesota. She won an easy victory on Tuesday, but yielded potentially the fewest number of split tickets since she first ran for statewide office 20 years ago. Voters who pick candidates from different parties are voting for a “split ticket.” If enough voters in a single county do that, the overall result can show candidates from two parties leading, and the county is considered split. There's no way to know exactly how many voters do this, but long term trends show it's becoming less common in statewide races. The number of split-ticket counties have varied since 2002, but are generally trending down. Elections when Klobuchar is on the ballot tended to see more split-ticket counties, meaning many voters cast a ballot for both her and a Republican candidate in another statewide race. Consider the 2006 election : Each circle is a county, sized proportionally by how many votes were cast there. Counties in the top right voted for both republicans in the races for governor and Senate, Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Mark Kennedy. Counties in the bottom left voted for Mike Hatch and Amy Klobuchar, both DFLers. But counties in the upper left split their tickets: Pawlenty for governor and Klobuchar for Senate. In all, 47 counties split. The difference between Klobuchar years and non-Klobuchar years are stark. In 2008 , only 18 counties split in the opposite direction, for Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and Pres. Barack Obama. Two decades later, voters show much less variability. Only two counties this year went for Klobuchar for governor and Tafoya for Senate, and by very close margins: Beltrami County, where Bemidji is, and Mower County, home to Austin. The counties that split tend to be in Greater Minnesota. In 2012 , voters in 57 of 87 counties split between Klobuchar and presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Two Senate elections were on the ballot in 2018: Klobuchar's regularly-scheduled one and a special election to replace Sen. Al Franken. Together, voters in 33 counties split their ticket between the governor and Senate candidates. The decline of split ticket voting becomes most apparent in 2020 as voters' partisanship strengthened. Just two counties – Mahnomen and Rice – split for Donald Trump and Tina Smith. With Klobuchar back on the ballot in 2024 , a dozen counties split their tickets. Still, it was a far cry from her enormous pull years before. Even though many voters consider themselves politically moderate , the data suggest most end up choosing one party or another, straight down the ticket. Margins of victory for Peggy Flanagan and Keith Ellison, the other statewide DFL candidates, were nearly as wide as Klobuchar’s. Explore the trends of 20 years of split-ticket counties below. Find a county Choose… Aitkin Anoka Becker Beltrami Benton Big Stone Blue Earth Brown Carlton Carver Cass Chippewa Chisago Clay Clearwater Cook Cottonwood Crow Wing Dakota Dodge Douglas Faribault Fillmore Freeborn Goodhue Grant Hennepin Houston Hubbard Isanti Itasca Jackson Kanabec Kandiyohi Kittson Koochiching Lac Qui Parle Lake Lake Of The Woods Le Sueur Lincoln Lyon Mahnomen Marshall Martin Mcleod Meeker Mille Lacs Morrison Mower Murray Nicollet Nobles Norman Olmsted Otter Tail Pennington Pine Pipestone Polk Pope Ramsey Red Lake Redwood Renville Rice Rock Roseau Scott Sherburne Sibley St. Louis Stearns Steele Stevens Swift Todd Traverse Wabasha Wadena Waseca Washington Watonwan Wilkin Winona Wright Yellow Medicine Split ticket Same party in all races Methodology Data was collected from the Minnesota Secretary of State. In 2018 there was a special senate eleciton in addition to a regularly scheduled senate election; voters in counties that split their ticket for just one of three candidates were counted as a split ticket county.