Mar. 9—EAST GRAND FORKS — After primary wins Tuesday by President Joe Biden and GOP presidential challenger Donald Trump, Minnesota party leaders from Polk County say the results show some division within their parties.

According to the Minnesota Secretary of State’s unofficial results, Trump won the Republican primary with 79.74% of the vote and Biden won the Democratic primary with 82.29% of the vote in Polk County. Both candidates won at higher margins in Polk County

than they did at the state level.

According to John Ross, vice chair in the Polk County Republican Party, the Polk County results show Donald Trump is the candidate of the party.

“I would hope the MNGOP gets on board with the Trump campaign,” Ross said. “We’re a pretty red county and (the results) solidify that Trump is the candidate.”

Ross also said that Trump winning almost 70% of the vote in the primary should convince party leadership to coalesce around Trump.

“At the state level of the party there is disdain (for Trump). The party board is never Trump,” Ross said. “We don’t know who the Trump liaison is, which is not surprising since (Party Chairman David Hahn) is a Never Trumper. (But) here in the county we’re expecting party leadership to unite behind Trump.”

Dalton Erickson, communications director of the Polk/Red Lake DFL party, said the primary was a good time to voice party concerns.

“We had 8% of people vote uncommitted in Polk County and 5.7% in Red Lake County, which is very much like a protest vote,” Erickson said. “From the feedback I’ve heard, all these people are still going to vote Biden in the general and I think it’s a great way to (say) ‘we have do have concerns’ while still being engaged.”

In the statewide Democratic primary, “uncommitted” received 18.8% of the vote. Of the 92 delegates Minnesota will send to the Democratic National Convention, 11 will be uncommitted. The biggest goal of the party right now is getting people engaged this year.

“It’s really about fighting against apathy and energizing people so they’ll get out,” Erickson said. “There’s a lot of people that might not like Biden and they definitely don’t like Trump so it’s reminding them the lesser of two evils.”