Ward by ward, here is how Rochester voted in Tuesday's Democratic primary
Minnesota’s presidential primary is officially in the rear-view mirror, and Joe Biden’s big Super Tuesday showing was punctuated by a decisive victory across the state. Biden won Minnesota with 38.6 percent of the vote.
Compared to the state as a whole, Rochester area voters over-delivered for the former vice president, while spurning gains for Senator Bernie Sanders, who carried the state and county in the 2016 presidential caucus.
42.8 percent of Olmsted County voters chose Biden, about a 4 percent bump over the statewide average. Sanders finished second to Biden in Olmsted County with 27.4 percent, slightly below his statewide 29.9 percent mark. Elizabeth Warren and Michael Bloomberg, the two major candidates still in the running when polls opened on Tuesday, underperformed their statewide averages in Olmsted County as well. (Bloomberg dropped out of the presidential race Wednesday morning.)
Inside Rochester’s city limits, support for Biden was just under the county’s level, but still higher than the final state percentages. Out of 16,272 Rochester voters, 6,596 selected Biden — good for 40.5 percent of the city’s total.
Unofficial primary vote totals (%)
Support for Biden was generally more prevalent the farther away a precinct was to the city center (and vice versa for Bernie Sanders). Biden crossed the 40 percent threshold in four of Rochester’s six wards, yet performed best in the southern sector of Rochester — especially in Ward 1, which covers the southern half of both the SW and SE quadrants. Biden won just over 44 percent of the vote in Ward 1, the highest total of any candidate across any ward in Rochester, and won 37 of the city’s 52 precincts.
The remaining 15 precincts were won by Sanders — the vast majority of those representing urban neighborhoods. Eight of Sanders’ 15 Rochester precinct victories came in Ward 4, which includes the heart of downtown and RCTC.
Elizabeth Warren, Michael Bloomberg, and Amy Klobuchar accounted for about a quarter of the votes cast in the county. Klobuchar, who was polling around 25 percent in Minnesota the days leading up to the vote, dropped out and endorsed Biden on Monday. The Minnesota senator still had some support in the vote, however; 1,092 residents voted for Klobuchar, garnering exactly one more vote than Michael Bloomberg. (Much of the support for Klobuchar can be attributed to early voting. Voters choosing to cast their ballots early cannot change their selection, even if their preferred candidate drops out of the race before Primary Day.)
Tuesday’s vote marked the first Minnesota presidential primary since 1992. In 2016’s presidential caucus, Olmsted County sided with Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton by a near 2 to 1 margin.
For a breakdown of your ward’s votes, check out the vote totals and graphs below, as well as breakdowns by various demographics from The New York Times.
Ward 1 (southern SW/SE)
Biden: 1,225 (44.26%)
Sanders: 688 (24.86%)
Warren: 367 (13.26%)
Klobuchar: 218 (7.86%)
Bloomberg: 190 (6.86%)
Other: 90 (3.25%)
Ward 2 (northern SW + Cascade Lake)
Biden: 1,470 (43.26%)
Sanders: 851 (25.04%)
Warren: 549 (16.16%)
Bloomberg: 239 (7.03%)
Klobuchar: 200 (5.89%)
Other: 89 (2.62%)
Ward 3 (northern NW)
Biden: 1,080 (42.29%)
Sanders: 750 (29.37%)
Warren: 344 (13.47%)
Bloomberg: 147 (5.76%)
Klobuchar: 133 (5.21%)
Other: 50 (1.96%)
Ward 4 (downtown, RCTC, northern SE)
Sanders: 821 (42.56%)
Biden: 580 (30.07%)
Warren: 292 (15.14%)
Bloomberg: 96 (4.98%)
Klobuchar: 91 (4.72%)
Other: 49 (2.54%)
Ward 5 (NE, Silver Lake, JM)
Biden: 1,287 (41.08%)
Sanders: 805 (25.69%)
Warren: 440 (14.04%)
Klobuchar: 286 (9.13%)
Bloomberg: 239 (7.63%)
Other: 76 (2.43%)
Ward 6 (lower NW, IBM, Elton Hills)
Biden: 954 (38.31%)
Sanders: 792 (31.81%)
Warren: 351 (14.1%)
Bloomberg: 180 (7.23%)
Klobuchar: 164 (6.59%)
Other: 49 (1.97%)
Isaac Jahns is a Rochester native and a 2019 graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism. He reports on politics, business and music for Med City Beat.
