Minnesota voted for theDFL candidate, formerVice PresidentWalter Mondale. He narrowly won his home state overincumbentPresidentRonald Reagan by just 3,761 votes, giving him his only state victory in the election (Mondale also carried theDistrict of Columbia), resulting in the state weighing in at around 18 percentage points more Democratic than the nation at large. Minnesota was the only state not to back Reagan in either of his two presidential campaigns. Although Mondale won only twenty of the state's 87 counties – making Reagan the only presidential nominee to win a majority of counties in every state – his large majorities in the heavily unionizedIron Range of the northeast overbalanced Reagan's majorities in the moreRepublican west of the state. Had Reagan overcome Mondale's 3,761 vote margin, he would have beenthe first nominee since 1820 to carryall the states, withNixon's 1972 49-state victory being less narrow both on account of Massachusetts's 14 electoral votes and the margin of 220,000 votes (nearly 9%).
As Reagan won all 49 other states in 1984, this established Minnesota's status as the state with the longest streak of voting Democratic. As of 2025, it still has not voted for a Republican presidential candidate sinceRichard Nixon carried it when he was re-elected in1972, though this remains the closest that a Republican presidential candidate has come to carrying the state since then. However, theDistrict of Columbia has voted Democratic in all presidential elections since1964, when it was first granted the right to vote in presidential elections. As of 2020, only five of the 20 counties Mondale won in 1984 were won by eitherHillary Clinton in2016 orJoe Biden in2020. Some examples of counties that have been lost to the Republican Party include those after1996 (Anoka County), after2008 (Aitkin County), or after2012 (Itasca County).Carlton County also abandoned the Democrats after 2020, leaving just four Mondale counties to also vote forKamala Harris in2024. Minnesota regenerated as a left-leaning force in the 1990s, late 2000s, and early 2010s, but has become a Democratic-leaning state in the 21st century, ironically with many former rural Mondale counties voting Republican in the 21st century. As Mondale won the state with a plurality, he became the only major party nominee to fail to get a majority of the vote in any state sinceWilliam Howard Taft in 1912. Lac qui Parle County would not vote Republican again until 2016.
Despite Mondale carrying his home state, Republican SenatorRudy Boschwitz was re-elected the same night. When Reagan was asked in December 1984 what he wanted for Christmas, he joked, "Well, Minnesota would have been nice".[2] He became the first Republican to ever win reelection without carrying Minnesota, and the first of any party sinceWoodrow Wilson did so in1916.
^Minnesota Secretary of State, "Voter Participation and Vote for President and Vice President, ... November 6, 1984 General Election," The Minnesota Legislative Manual 1985-1986 (St. Paul, 1985)
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