In his final State of the State speech, Gov. Walz ran through some of the events of his governorship; COVID-19, the murders of Melissa and Mark Hortman, the Annunciation Church shooting, and Operation Metro Surge. “It’s been a complicated seven years,” he said. Nevertheless, he concluded that: “the state of our state remains strong.”
Polling suggests that Minnesotans do not agree.
Starting in March 2019, our Thinking Minnesota Poll has occasionally asked:
Generally speaking, would you say that things in Minnesota are going in the right direction, or have they gotten off on the wrong track?
The first time we asked that question, as Figure 1 shows, 57% of respondents said “Right direction” and 38% said “Wrong track.” Over the period of the COVID-19 pandemic, this flipped and in June 2021, “Wrong track” was up three points on “Right direction.” As our subsequent polling — and that of others such as St. Cloud State University and the America First Policy Institute — shows, that gap has only widened. Indeed, the last time we polled this question in February 2026, just 27% of respondents said that Minnesota is going in the “Right direction” and 65% said our state is on the “Wrong track” — that is 2 to 1 for “Wrong track.” Minnesotans would not be saying this if they truly felt that the state of their state was strong.
Figure 1: Generally speaking, would you say that things in Minnesota are going in the right direction, or have they gotten off on the wrong track?
They have good reason to feel this way. As I have noted:
- In every single year since 2014, per capita GDP has grown more slowly in Minnesota than for the United States generally, a record of underperformance matched only by Wisconsin. (Source)
- As recently as 2014, GDP was $4,700 per person higher than it was for the United States generally, or $18,800 for a family of four. In 2025, for the first time on record, GDP per capita in Minnesota was below the national average. (Source)
- In real terms, median household income in Minnesota has fallen by 6.4% since 2019, a worse performance than in 44 states. (Source)
- Real, per capita Personal Income has grown more slowly in Minnesota since 2018 than in 34 other states. (Source)
- The average earning Minnesotan handed over 4.9% of their 2025 wages to the state government, a higher share than in 43 out of 50 other states. (Source)
- Minnesota is one of just 16 states where the share of the average earner’s wages swallowed up by the state government in income tax has increased over the last decade. (Source)
- In 2025, Minnesota’s state government spent $6,098 per person, an amount higher than in 45 other states. (Source)
- Adjusted for inflation, Minnesota’s level of state government spending per person increased by 18.5% between 2019 and 2025. This was a greater increase than in 42 other states. (Source)
- Between 2020 and 2025, Minnesota suffered a net loss of residents to other parts of the United States which was worse than in 34 other states. (Source)
- Since 2019, our state has lost residents in every age category and every income category above $25,000 annually. (Source)
As I concluded recently, “The key question for any candidate of any party seeking to replace him is: “What would you do differently?”
