The 2016 Minnesota Democratic presidential caucuses took place on March 1 in the U.S. state of

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

as one of the Democratic Party's

primaries Primary elections or primaries are elections held to determine which candidates will run in an upcoming general election. In a partisan primary, a political party selects a candidate. Depending on the state and/or party, there may be an "open pri ...

ahead of the

2016 presidential election This national electoral calendar for 2016 lists the national/ federal elections held in 2016 in all sovereign states and their dependent territories. By-elections are excluded, though national referendums are included. January *7 January: Kiri ...

. On the same day, dubbed "

Super Tuesday Super Tuesday is the United States presidential primary election day in February or March when the greatest number of U.S. states hold primary elections and caucuses. Approximately one-third of all delegates to the presidential nominatin ...

," Democratic primaries were held in ten other states plus

American Samoa American Samoa is an Territories of the United States, unincorporated and unorganized territory of the United States located in the Polynesia region of the Pacific Ocean, South Pacific Ocean. Centered on , it is southeast of the island count ...

, while the Republican Party held primaries in eleven states including their own Minnesota caucuses.

Opinion polling

Results

Primary date: March 1, 2016
National delegates: 69

Analysis

Bernie Sanders scored an imperative, much-needed victory in the Minnesota caucus, a state he had targeted to keep his path to the nomination alive. With its

populist Populism is a contested concept used to refer to a variety of political stances that emphasize the idea of the " common people" and often position this group in opposition to a perceived elite. It is frequently associated with anti-establis ...

, mostly

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

electorate, Minnesota was a state seen as favorable to Sanders based on his performance in previous caucus contests, which was only aided by high voter turnout, almost topping the record of 211,000 votes in the 2008 Minnesota Democratic Presidential Primary. Sanders ran up big margins in

Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

and the

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...

s, and in the

working-class The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...

, mostly white

Iron Range The Iron Range is collectively or individually a number of elongated iron-ore mining districts around Lake Superior in the United States and Canada. Much of the ore-bearing region lies alongside the range of granite hills formed by the Giants ...

of northern Minnesota which contains the city of

Duluth Duluth ( ) is a Port, port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of St. Louis County, Minnesota, St. Louis County. Located on Lake Superior in Minnesota's Arrowhead Region, the city is a hub for cargo shipping. The population ...

, where he won north of 60% of the vote. Sanders won 76 out of 87 counties and all eight congressional districts in the state. Sanders had campaigned hard for the state, appearing with Rep.

Keith Ellison Keith Maurice Ellison (born August 4, 1963) is an American politician and lawyer serving since 2019 as the 30th attorney general of Minnesota. A member of the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), Ellison was the U.S. representative for fr ...

, the

Congressional Progressive Caucus The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) is a congressional caucus affiliated with the Democratic Party in the United States Congress. The CPC represents the progressive faction of the Democratic Party. " e Congressional Progressive Caucus, ...

co-chair who endorsed Sanders in October 2015.

References

{{2016 Democratic primaries

Democratic caucuses

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...