Bernie Sanders won Minnesota’s Super Tuesday caucuses by a wide margin, but Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton says if the state would have held a primary, Hillary Clinton would have been the victor.
Dayton says Democratic Party activists were reason Bernie Sanders won. Dayton knows something about the caucus system and party activists. In 2010 when Dayton ran for his first term as Governor, delegates elected at the caucuses ultimately denied him the party’s endorsement. He ran against the DFL party endorsed candidate, Margaret Anderson Kelliher, and beat her in the primary. He then went on to win the general election.
“Hillary Clinton in my judgement would have won a primary handily in Minnesota,” said Dayton. “The polls I’ve seen statewide in terms of voting show…support that.”
A late January Star Tribune poll gave Clinton a 34 percentage point lead over Sanders. However, the poll had 5.7% plus or minus margin of error because only about 300 Democrats were interviewed for the poll. The poll did not screen out voters who were not likely to attend their caucuses.
Sanders won the bulk of delegates in Minnesota, but Dayton and many other Minnesota “Super delegates” are supporters of Clinton.
Dayton says he’s in support of making Minnesota a presidential primary state as Rep. Pat Garofalo has proposed.