(KSTP) — If Republicans are to take control of the Minnesota House of Representatives for the first time in six years, they’ll need to flip at least four seats. The House is now narrowly controlled by Democrats, 70 to 64.

According to our latest KSTP/SurveyUSA poll, Democrats hold a slight edge among likely voters when asked which party they plan to support in the upcoming House elections, with 47% preferring a Democrat, 43% supporting a Republican and eight percent undecided. Another three percent prefer someone else.

“Republicans will turn out, specifically for those House races,” says Republican House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth. “As we’ve talked about the need to bring balance back into the Legislature. Divided government does serve us better.”

But DFL House Majority Leader Jamie Long says having Gov. Tim Walz running for vice president on the Kamala Harris ticket energized Minnesota Democrats. “We’ve certainly seen that in volunteer turnout,” he said in an interview alongside Demuth recorded for “At Issue” this Sunday. “We’ve seen that in our fundraising from grassroots donors and we’ve seen that from voters. We know that folks are excited to turn out.”

Other findings will seem familiar. There’s a huge gender gap, with Democrats leading 57% to 32% among women and Republicans leading 53% to 37% among men. The DFL and GOP are tied at 34% among independents.

Geographically, it is another tale of two Minnesotas. Democrats lead in the Twin Cities metro area 52% to 37%. The GOP leads everywhere else: 55% to 31% in southern Minnesota, 53% to 41% in western Minnesota and 49% to 45% in northeastern Minnesota.

Our survey included 42% of respondents who identified themselves as Democrats, 36% as Republicans and 19% as independents.

SurveyUSA interviewed 800 adults from the state of Minnesota 09/23/24 through 09/26/24. Of the adults, 708 were identified as being registered to vote; of the registered voters, 646 were determined by SurveyUSA to be likely to vote in the November general election and were asked the substantive questions which follow. This research was conducted online, using nonprobability sample of online adult panelists chosen randomly by Lucid Holdings LLC of New Orleans. The combined pool of survey respondents was weighted to US Census ACS targets for gender, age, race, education, and home ownership.