I should have said resistance heating. A heat pump can be more efficient, but it won't work well in some climates.
http://energy.gov/energysaver/heat-pump-systems
We're actually in the process of deciding on all of this right now for our new home. Electric resistance heat is very efficient when used with hydronics (heating water) because water is a good conductor of heat. It is
slow, which is why electric coil ranges are terrible, as anyone who likes to cook knows, but very efficient (slow and steady wins the race, in this regard, certainly).
Unfortunately, air is a particularly good insulator and so "coil heat strips" are terribly inefficient (well, good because otherwise we'd all die from a single lightning strike across the planet, bad for resistance heating). The main problem with air-source heat pumps in cold climates, like you have there in MN and as I have here in ME, is that they have to supplement the heat when the outside air temperature drops. They generally do this with coil heat strips, and so the efficiency of the heat pump (which is otherwise absolutely splendid) plummets like a stone below around the freezing point of water. Hydronics is good, though. You can do it instead with a Rinnai on-demand hot water heater and an itsy-bitsy little forced hot water heat system strapped to the outside of your heat pump, but that's no longer electric.
If you can stomach the cost of digging a deep well, you can use groundwater source heat pumps, and then your heating is almost completely free (other than running the fans and pumps to move the liquid around). Unfortunately for us, we're building our house on a giant granite rock...
So, we're going with a "traditional" propane boiler. All in all, for our area, that's just more efficient. We might, if we can stomach the cost, put a couple mini-split heat pumps upstairs in the bedrooms, and use them only in the spring and fall (and get "free" air conditioning up there for the 2 weeks of actual hot summer we get each year). But we'll see. That might have to come later.
We're planning to wire it for photovoltaics on the roof though! And I'm absolutely putting two 220v outlets in the garage for a future all-electric car or two.