Minnesota was won by the Progressive candidate, former President Theodore Roosevelt, won the state over the Democratic candidate, New Jersey governor Woodrow Wilson, by a margin of 19,430 votes, or 5.82%, while Republican incumbent President William Howard Taft came in third, with just 19.25% of the vote, and perennial Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs came in fourth while winning the votes of 8.23% of Minnesota voters.

Taft's 19.25% still ranks as the lowest percentage of the popular vote any Republican presidential nominee has ever won in Minnesota.

The 1912 election also marked the high water point for the Socialist Party of America, both nationally and in Minnesota.

No Socialist Party candidate—before or since—has ever won a higher percentage of the national popular vote than Debs did in 1912, and no Socialist Party candidate for any office has won a higher percentage of the statewide vote in Minnesota.

Minnesota would not go against the Republican Party in a presidential election again until Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt won the state in 1932.