Presidential Race? What Presidential Race?

While the majority of area voters thought the presidential race was the most important thing on last November's ballot, the feeling wasn't unanimous.

According to election day exit polling conducted in Rosemount (among other places across the Second Congressional District) by students from St. Olaf College, a quarter of voters thought the proposed marriage amendment was the most imortant issue, while 9 percent considered the voter ID amendment most important.

Students from visiting assistant professor Henriet Hendriks' political science class conducted exit polling throughout the Second Congressional District, which spreads across Dakota, Washington, Rice, Carver, Scott, Goodhue and Le Sueur counties.

Just before Christmas, Hendricks' class finished analyzing the more than 500 responses from Rice, Dakota and Scott counties, which asked respondents how they voted for the presidential race, the Second Congressional District 2 race and the proposed constitutional amendments on marriage and voter ID. There were also several other questions ranging from topics such as health care, the economy and measures for which the government should go to to protect Americans.

The respondents were in line with all CD2 voters for re-electing President Barack Obama (D) and Rep. John Kline (R), as well as turning down the marriage amendent, but while the majority of respondents say they voted "no" on the voter ID measure, CD2 actually swung in favor for the ballot question.

You can see the questionnaire and full results attached as PDFs.