ST PAUL, Minn. — The Minnesota State Capitol is filled with big personalities and lengthy debates, but which party has control next year could be decided by a very small number of voters.

University of Minnesota political professor Larry Jacobs said as of Wednesday evening there is a dead-even tie in the Minnesota House with 67 Republicans and 67 Democrats.

“My breath is still being held. We are in the middle of a very close battle,” Jacobs said. “It’s really rare. You have to go into the history books.”

According to the Minnesota Legislature’s website, Minnesota hasn’t experienced a tie in the house since 1979. Records show the two parties argued over who would fill the role as Speaker of the House, since neither party could claim the position without a majority in the House.

The Secretary of State took over the role temporarily until the two parties worked out a deal. However, records show that deal between the parties eventually fell apart during the final days of the session.

According to the Minnesota Legislature’s records, the last 10 days of the 1979 legislative session included:

 Fists slammed on desks, cries of order that were ignored, protests and dissents being logged in the Journal of the House, a walk out of DFL representatives that left the House without a quorum, and official business left unfinished, necessitating a special session.”

Jacobs said history could repeat itself if the tie in this current election is ultimately upheld.

“The first question will be well, who is going to be the speaker? Who are going to be on the committees? How are the committees going to operate? There will be a lot to sort out,” Jacobs said.

However, there is a decent chance the tie in the Minnesota House could be broken. Two of the races for seats in the Minnesota House are incredibly close. In District 14-B in Saint Cloud, the race was decided by just 28 votes. In District 54-A in Shakopee, the race was decided by a matter of just 13 votes.

Election officials in the respective counties, Scott County and Stearns County, both say that a recount is possible.

Officials say the losing candidates must request a recount, but their campaigns won’t have to pay for the recount because the margin of victory is lower than 0.5%, which is the requirement for a publicly funded recount.

Election officials in Scott County say the recount in the race for 54-A could happen sometime between Nov. 20 and Dec. 2.

Election officials in Stearns County say a recount in the race for 14-B would likely happen sometime during the week of Thanksgiving.

Election officials in both counties are currently working with the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office to facilitate their potential recount should the candidates formally request one.

“These are very close races. It’s a few dozen votes. If you think of your extended family that might show up for a reunion, it’s that kind of difference,” Professor Jacobs says.

There is more at stake than just control over the Minnesota House. Jacobs said recounts in these two races could potentially determine whether one party has control over the entire Minnesota State Capitol.

“The Democrats have been able to hold the one seat that was up in the Senate, so they are going to have their one-seat majority in the Senate. The governor of course, Tim Walz, is back, so the Democrats have two of the three.”

The Democrats would have had a clean sweep of all three bodies if it weren’t for just a handful of votes in these two close races that have narrow victories by Republicans.

“Overall, it’s good news for the Republicans, because if it’s a tie, or it’s a majority, they are going to be able to block the Democrats,” Jacobs said/

So, if everything stands, could history repeat itself here in Minnesota? Jacobs said Minnesotans could be facing another chaotic session at the State Capitol, like they did back in 1979.

“I would hope there would be some effort on some issues to find agreement, but the reality is that the game plan for Republicans is to stop the Democrats. They don’t want to see spending. They don’t want to see taxes being increased. I don’t think it’s malice. I think it’s just very different political agendas,” Jacobs said.

Besides the races in 54-A and 14-B, nearly a half dozen other Minnesota house races were determined by a few hundred votes.

Candidates in those other close races could also request a recount, but election officials say since the margin of victory in those other races is higher than the margin of 0.5% the candidates would have to pay for the recount themselves.

MINNEAPOLIS — Exit polls found a consistent theme among the voters who helped send President Donald Trump back to the White House on Tuesday: Inflation and the economy were top of mind.

According to national exit polls conducted by NBC News,  45% of all voters said they were worse off financially than they were four years ago, with 2 in 3 rating the economy poorly.

But at a time when many economic indicators show the U.S. is outperforming many other countries, the views of voters still vary widely.

“One thing that’s interesting about the economy this year is that the economy has sent some mixed signals,” said Chris Chapp, Political Science Professor at St. Olaf College. “And voters really reacted through a very partisan lens.”

Professor Chapp and his students conducted exit polling across 14 precincts within Minnesota Congressional District Two.

Of the 665 voters surveyed, 55% of Trump voters listed “Inflation/Economy” as the most important issue, compared to just 18% of Harris voters.

While Harris did win Minnesota, and narrowly carry CD2, Chapp says economic concerns help explain why she underperformed democrats Angie Craig and Amy Klobuchar.

“In our survey, close to 10% of Klobuchar voters also voted for Trump,” Chapp said.

Of those split-ticket voters, Chapp says 45% listed “Inflation/Economy” as the top issue.

“It doesn’t matter where you go, high prices are hitting people in the face,” said Chris Farrell, senior economics contributor for American Public Media’s Marketplace.

While economic frustrations helped swing the election in Trump’s favor, Farrell says the post election surge on Wall Street on Wednesday also shows how strong the underlying economy continues to be.

“President-elect Trump is inheriting a good economy,” Farrell said. “You have a low unemployment rate. The economy grew at a 2.7% annual rate in the third quarter, the inflation rate is coming down. 

And then the expectation is there is going to be less regulation and lower taxes, so you’re looking at pretty good cash flow. That’s what I think we’re going to be seeing in the stock market.”

But he says the real test will be what comes next.

“I do believe that we will have tariff increases,” Farrell said. “I don’t know what exactly the percentage is going to be but Trump has been consistent throughout the campaign and actually back when he was President, very consistent that he likes tariffs.”

Once that plan emerges he anticipates a different kind of inflation fight with the federal reserve over interest rate cuts. 

Then there are all the other cuts that Trump has promised on the campaign trail, alongside his so-called “secretary of cost-cutting,” Elon Musk.

“My expectation, and this is what I’m going to watch, is that Musk is going to be involved,” Farrell said. “What does this really mean if he gets involved in cutting the budget, how will that emerge, how deep will the cuts be who is going to get impacted by those cuts? Follow that closely because once we start making cuts, it can have a real impact on people’s ordinary lives.”

MINNEAPOLIS — On his way back to the White House, President-elect Donald Trump did not capture the state of Minnesota, which still has not voted for a Republican candidate since Richard Nixon in 1972.

However, compared to 2020, Trump shaved his margin of defeat from roughly seven points to four points. County-by-county results also show notable gains in Greater Minnesota. In all, the Trump-Vance ticket flipped four counties red this election: Winona, Nicollet, Carlton and Blue Earth County. 

Those last two really sting for the Democrats and the Minnesota DFL. 

According to the Cook Political Report, Carlton County voters had not chosen a Republican president since Herbert Hoover in 1928. Additionally, Blue Earth County is Gov. Tim Walz’s home county, where he served for years as a teacher and coach in the county seat of Mankato. 

Preliminary data shows Trump defeating the Harris-Walz ticket by fewer than 500 votes in Blue Earth County this year, after losing by more than 1,000 to President Biden in 2020.

Yvonne Simon, the chair of the Blue Earth County Republicans, credited her organization’s ground game for flipping the county red. 

“It was a lot of hard work. We did a lot of phone calling, door-knocking, events to create awareness. We also had a campaign office in Mankato where people could come in and get signs,” Simon said. “What we were hearing in the campaign office was what you heard at the national level too — economy, economy, economy.”

Simon said the results in Blue Earth County specifically sent a message about Gov. Walz, who attended a Mankato West football game last month and had local supporters gather to watch election results on Tuesday evening.

“Walz, in our area from my experience in living here, is not exactly appreciated for what he thinks and takes us for granted for,” Simon said. “That type of value that the people of Blue Earth County had placed on what he did or didn’t do, turned it, I believe.”

RELATED: How Minnesota voted in the biggest 2024 races

Still, the margins were razor-thin in the four counties that Trump flipped red this year. He won all of those counties by 2,000 votes or fewer, and in Nicollet County — which borders Blue Earth — Trump won by about 100 votes (with 95 percent of precincts reporting, per NBC News). Also, it should be noted that Trump’s overall performance in Minnesota still did not match his margins in 2020, when he came within two percentage points of defeating Hillary Clinton.

Even so, Democratic strategist and former DFL legislator Jeff Hayden said Trump’s gains are a danger sign for his party.

“I think it really speaks to the issue in Minnesota, and nationally, where Democrats have — for some reason — really lost this relationship with working-class people,” Hayden said. “Especially in Minnesota where the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party is really part of our creed. And for whatever reason, our message is not resonating with those kind of blue-collar, labor groups out there.”

The results in Minnesota mirror national trends, where the Harris ticket significantly underperformed compared to Biden in 2020.

“We have to do some real work in listening to people,” Hayden said, “and articulating what our platform is — and why we think this is better.”