The Star Tribune and MPR News interviewed 500 likely Democratic primary voters in Minnesota between Feb. 17 and Feb. 20. Results from questions about the Minnesota Democratic primary voters are below. The margin of error for this sample is plus or minus 4.5%. Totals may not add up to 100% due to rounding. Scroll down the page for details about how the poll was conducted and the demographics of the 500 respondents.

If the 2020 Democratic primary election for president were held today, who would you vote for?

Which one of the following issues is most important to you in your vote for a Democratic presidential nominee?

About the poll

The findings of this Star Tribune/MPR News Minnesota Poll are based on live interviews conducted Feb. 17 to Feb. 20 with 500 Minnesota registered voters who indicated they were likely to vote in Minnesota’s Democratic presidential primary election on March 3.

Of this sample, 267 were obtained Feb. 17 through Feb. 19, during interviews with 800 registered voters for a more expansive Star Tribune/MPR News Minnesota Poll, the results of which will be published in the coming days. On February 20, an additional 233 interviews with likely Democratic primary voters were conducted. This is commonly referred to as an “oversample”. These voters were only asked the questions related to the Democratic primary that were included in the poll.

The interviews were conducted via land line (46%) and cellphone (54%). The poll was conducted for the Star Tribune and Minnesota Public Radio News by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research Inc.

The sample for this survey was drawn from a Mason-Dixon database that includes approximately 2.2 million registered Minnesota voters who are matched with a telephone number – either a land line, a cell phone or both. A random sample of 100,000 voters from unique households with unique phones was drawn from this database for use in calling on this poll.

Completed interviews were distributed proportionately by county in order to reflect historic Democratic primary voting. For example, typically Hennepin County and Ramsey County cast 47% of the vote in a statewide Democratic primary election. Therefore, 47% of the 500 likely Democratic voters in the poll were drawn from Hennepin and Ramsey counties.

Results of a poll based on 500 interviews will vary by no more than 4.5 percentage points, plus or minus, from the overall population 95 times out of 100. Margins are larger for groups within the sample, such as age and income groups.

The self-identified party affiliation of the respondents is 76 percent Democrats, 1 percent Republicans and 23 percent independents or other. Minnesota does not require voters to be registered with a party in order to vote in its primary.

Sampling error does not take into account other sources of variation inherent in public opinion surveys, such as nonresponse, question wording or context effects. In addition, news events may have affected opinions during the period the poll was taken.

The demographic profile of both the 800-interview poll of registered voters and the 500-interview poll of likely Democratic primary voters are accurate reflections of their respective voter populations. This determination is based on over 100 statewide polls conducted by Mason-Dixon in Minnesota over the past 32 years – a period that spans eight presidential election cycles that began in 1988.

Readers can e-mail questions to matt.delong@startribune.com

Demographic breakdown of this polling sample