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A majority of Minnesotans believe anyone with a felony conviction should be barred from the Oval Office, according to a new poll, and they also dislike the aging of major party candidates.
A majority of Minnesotans believe anyone with a felony conviction should be disqualified from running for president, according to poll results released Tuesday morning.
About 55% of those surveyed said someone with a felony conviction is ineligible to run for the nation's highest office, and just over 54% believe former President Donald Trump received a fair trial recently in New York, according to a poll commissioned by MPR News, KARE 11 and the Star Tribune.
Trump was convicted of 34 felonies in connection with the hush money case. The poll, conducted last week by Mason Dixon Polling & Strategy based on live interviews with 800 Minnesota voters after Trump's conviction on May 30, has a sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
President Joe Biden beat Trump in Minnesota by about 7 percentage points in 2020, a much larger margin than four years ago, when Trump defeated then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton by less than 2 points.
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Both candidates see Minnesota as key to their path to the White House.
Forty-four percent of those surveyed said Trump did not receive a fair trial. Republicans and those who said they would vote for the former president expressed the strongest doubts about a conviction. These same groups were also more likely to say someone with a felony conviction should be able to run for president.
Beth Rigby, a biologist from Minneapolis who participated in the poll, said a conviction of Trump should bar him from running for president.
“The felony that he was convicted of was rigging an election and trying to hide information from the public,” said Rigby, 42. “I think that's a pretty big disqualification for a presidential candidate.”
Rigby said he plans to vote for Biden because he feels he is best qualified for the presidency and will protect American democracy.
John and Nancy Niklason, 71, of Litchfield, say the criminal charges were unfairly brought against them and that they plan to vote for Trump regardless of the outcome.
“Anyone with any other last name than his would not have even been charged,” John Nicklason said.
His wife agreed, saying the allegations were overblown ahead of the presidential election.
“Something will happen after the election, they'll pardon him or something,” Nancy Nicklason said, “and by then it will be too late, because people won't see the truth.”
Public opinion aside, the Constitution is silent on the issue and does not bar someone with a criminal record from becoming president.
The Nicklasons are not polling, but they agree with most Republicans and Trump supporters who say Biden did not win the 2020 election legitimately.
Overall, 68.5% of those surveyed said the results were valid, 25.4% said they were not valid, and 6% were unsure.
Extensive reporting after the 2020 election refuted claims of widespread voter fraud.
The survey also asked about the candidates' ages and whether it was a concern for voters. A majority (52%) said both candidates are too old to serve as president. Twenty-five percent said Biden is too old, 1.6% said Trump is too old, and an additional 20% said neither candidate is too old to serve as president.
Biden is 81 years old and Trump is 77 years old.
“Personally, I think they're both too old to be president,” said Nathan Johnson, 35, of Richfield, who said he is a conservative but has misgivings about both candidates.
Nathan Johnson outside a Burger Day event in Richfield last week said he's concerned about the aging of candidates on both major parties.
Dana Ferguson | MPR News
“I think there should be an age limit for the presidency so we don't discriminate against people of that age, but I think they both show signs of physical and mental decline, so I wouldn't want them to be leader of the free world.”
Keith Nelson, a 35-year-old bank auditor from Litchfield, agreed that Americans should consider rules that would set an upper age limit for candidates.
“I've said for a long time that if there's a minimum age to become president or a senator or whatever, there should also be a maximum age,” Nelson said.
“I've said for a long time that if there's a minimum age to become president or senator or whatever, there should be a maximum age,” said Keith Nelson, a bank auditor in Richfield.
Dana Ferguson | MPR News
“If there are term limits on the president, there are term limits on Congress. The reason the framers of the Constitution didn't provide that is because they thought it would be rational for people not to elect someone who is 75 years old,” he added.
Jim Strommen, a former Victoria lawyer, said age is not a disqualifying issue for him and that he will vote for Biden because he believes he is better able to do the job than Trump.
“I know he's old, but there is no other Democratic candidate worthy of being the nominee for president,” Strommen said. “I do not support former President Trump for many reasons and have come to that conclusion for many years.”
Overall, the live interview poll found that about 45% of respondents support Biden in the presidential election and about 41% support Trump, which is considered a close race given the poll's margin of sampling error.
Editor's note: For more details about the poll and its methodology, please visit our sister publication, MPR News. APM Research Lab.
