Mark Dayton won with 48.8% of the vote (1,181,553 votes), ahead of Rod Grams with 43.3% (1,047,474 votes).
The margin between the first two candidates was 5.5 percentage points (134,079 votes). The party margin (Republican share minus Democratic share) was a Democratic lead of 5.5 points.
Compared with the previous comparable race in the same area, the party margin moved 3.5 points toward Republicans.
2,419,520 votes were counted in this race, for 7 candidates or options.
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