Top News

Minneapolis (AP) ― None of the stadium proposals before the Legislature has strong public support, and most Minnesotans want the Twins, Vikings and Gopher football teams to stay put in the Metrodome, according to a new poll published Sunday.

According to the Star Tribune Minnesota Poll, when asked which team needs a stadium most, the Twins had about as much support as the Gophers -- 23 percent and 21 percent of the respondents, respectively.

Only 13 percent of those polled gave top priority to the Vikings, the poll found.

But the largest group, 29 percent of those responding, said none of the teams need a new stadium. Fifty-six percent said the Twins should continue using the Metrodome, while 63 percent said the Vikings should stay there and 54 percent said the Gophers should keep playing in the Dome.

The statewide poll of 725 Minnesotans was conducted Thursday and Friday. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

The newspaper reported that the poll results drew mixed reactions from the teams and political leaders, who are focused on the stadium issue as the Legislature nears adjournment.

Twins Sports Inc. president Jerry Bell said the poll was "interesting" but not a substitute for the feedback the team had received during public hearings on the stadium proposal.

House Speaker Steve Sviggum said that "sometimes in life it takes leadership" to take action that may go against what a poll suggests.

The Star Tribune said that for the Twins, the new findings mirrored the results of a Minnesota Poll last year that showed two-thirds opposed to spending public money to build a new stadium. The new poll showed that 68 percent still oppose using public money for the project.

For the Vikings, who are campaigning to win public support for a new stadium, the poll found that more than three in five people said the team should continue using the Metrodome, and 73 percent strongly oppose public money for a new Vikings stadium.

The poll said 78 percent of Minnesotans favor a referendum if the Legislature allows Hennepin County to levy a .15 percent sales tax countywide to help build a new Twins stadium in downtown Minneapolis. The Twins say a referendum would kill the deal.

But the poll offered some support for proponents of the latest plan to build stadiums for the Twins and Vikings, which the Senate approved last week. The Senate version calls for a seven-county referendum on whether to levy a one-half percent sales tax increase metrowide to build stadiums for the two teams and also fund mass transit. Forty-five percent approved of the Senate plan, and 49 percent opposed it.

Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson said he found those results surprising and that they should send a message to the plan's Republican opponents. But he said the general opposition to building stadiums was coming from "an interesting coalition" of conservatives and liberal-leaning Democrats.

"If it's going to get done, it's (going to be) a bipartisanship of moderates," Johnson said.

Laura Lehmann, the head of Citizens for a Stadium Tax Referendum, said the poll confirmed what stadium opponents have been arguing all along at the Legislature.

The Vikings stadium point man, Lester Bagley, found flaws with how the poll framed its questions. He said the Vikings, in their own polling, had found much more support when citizens were told the stadium was part of a more than $1 billion economic development project featuring a shopping venue and offices in Blaine.

Bagley said the Vikings were modifying their proposal to try to make it more attractive to legislators in the final days of the session.

"We feel good about our project, our proposal," he said.

-------

The Metrodome opened in 1982.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)