St. PAUL – Final counts for Minnesota’s Tuesday, Aug. 9 primary election have not yet been certified, but Secretary of State Steve Simon said voter turnout appeared to be “relatively strong” compared to other years .
More than 18 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the 2022 primary, according to preliminary counts from the Secretary of State’s Office. Preliminary results show
more than 700,000 people voted for the republican governor and farm labor democrat
candidates Those numbers could change as local election officials across the state certify their results, and the final official turnout likely won’t be available until after November, when updated numbers of eligible voters are available.
Primary elections, where each party’s voters choose their final candidates, tend to have significantly lower turnout than November’s general election. Minnesota has had the highest voter turnout in its last three general elections, reaching nearly 80% in 2020. As of August 3, there were 3,561,194 registered voters in Minnesota.
Typically, primaries attract more voters when there is strong competition among same-party candidates vying for their party’s nomination. In a tweet, Simon pointed to the 2018 primary election as an example. That year saw Democratic-Farmer-Labor and Republican contests for governor. Now-Governor Tim Walz challenged DFL-endorsed candidate Erin Murphy, and GOP-endorsed candidate Jeff Johnson fought off a challenge from former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
In 2014, only Republicans had a competitive gubernatorial primary, and turnout was about 10 percent, Simon noted.
This year, DFLers Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, Secretary of State Steve Simon and Auditor Julie Blaha have not faced major challenges. On the Republican side, gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen, secretary of state candidate Kim Crockett and auditor candidate Ryan Wilson did not see strong competition.
But some of the contests saw more action, including the Republican attorney general primary, where endorsed candidate Jim Schultz faced a challenge from 2018 attorney general candidate Doug Wardlow. Schultz ultimately prevailed with approximately 53% of the vote to Wardlow’s 35%. A third candidate, Sharon Anderson, received the remaining votes in this race.
Some congressional districts also saw competitive races. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a progressive Democrat from Minneapolis, retained her seat over a challenge from former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels, a moderate.
Absentee voting numbers were not final as of Wednesday, but as of Tuesday the secretary of state had counted 152,102 accepted ballots. In the 2020 state primaries, Minnesota accepted more than 543,000. While the 2022 absenteeism numbers have not reached the levels seen in the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, they are still significantly higher than in the 2018 and 2016 primaries.
Below are the final results of the Minnesota primary election on Tuesday, August 9. They are with 100% of the sites reporting,
according to the Secretary of State’s website.
