Minnesota burst back into prominence in the final hours of the presidential campaign Sunday as Republican candidate Donald Trump made a last-minute stop in the Twin Cities, and Democrats fanned out across the state for Hillary Clinton.
"If I don't win Minnesota, I'm going to look real bad to those pundits I don't respect very much," said Trump, drawing roaring applause from about 5,000 supporters inside a Sun Country Airlines hangar Sunday afternoon, and thousands more outside. "This is our last chance. We're not going to have another chance. Four years, you can forget it."
Party advocates and activists spent the weekend making last-ditch appeals in every corner of the state as the airwaves were taken over by a barrage of ads for Trump, Clinton and local candidates. The presidential campaigns and PACs have poured millions of dollars into a final nationwide advertising blitz.
Clinton's local DFL advocates called a news conference Sunday to decry a candidate who "insults Gold Star families who have made the ultimate sacrifice, mocks people with disabilities, and calls women 'fat pigs,' 'bimbos' and 'dogs.' "
"It's clear Minnesotans have seen the way he treats women, immigrants, his workers, people with disabilities and Gold Star families and know that he is temperamentally unfit to be president," said Sen. Kari Dziedzic, DFL-Minneapolis.
Clinton started Sunday preaching at a black church in Philadelphia and also made stops in New Hampshire and Ohio, pledging to continue the policies of President Obama. She laid out a positive message in the final hours, championing "hopes over fear, unity over division and love over hate."
Her campaign chairman, John Podesta, expressed confidence on ABC's "This Week" that Clinton will win Minnesota and Michigan, which suddenly emerged as a swing state.
"We feel good about Minnesota," Podesta said. "You know, [Trump] made that last-minute change to abandon Wisconsin and go to Minnesota — we're not sure why he did that."