This was supposed to be the marquee race of the 08 cycle. But I’ve heard very, very little about it in recent months.
It seems like Franken has the leg up right now. The question with Franken was whether or not he was a serious candidate and whether or not he could win. He’s definitely confirmed the first part. And the second part, he’s been polling just as good as Ciresi recently.
Minnesotans fill me in, what does it look like?
Aside from campaign contributions, the race for the DFL senate nomination has been relatively stagnant since before the holiday season. The last survey/poll of size-able consequence was in October, and the results for the lead in every question were within the margin of error for both the DFL nomination and which candidate could beat Coleman.
Both candidates continue to announce new endorsements, with Ciresi garnering many notable local politician endorsements and Franken being endorsed by several major unions, including the Teachers Union, USW and Teamsters.
Since then several small polls show Franken building momentum, but not within the confines of “likely caucus goers”. Campaign contributions on the other hand show Franken gaining a considerable lead over all candidates, as he out raised Senator Coleman by around $200,000 in the fourth quarter, with a total near $1.9 Million raised since he began campaigning.
The candidates all appear regularly for debates on interviews on various public broadcast TV and radio stations, which also include Jim Cohen, the other notable DFL candidate who doesn’t win much poll or contribution attention, but is still fighting. Franken and Ciresi both began airing TV adds this week, both with well mannered content.
Minnesota also does not have a clear direction of momentum for either party, having in the last election both replaced a GOP US Rep with a DFL freshman candidate, and re-electing a staunchly GOP Governor who spends a good deal of time now campaigning for McCain.
As obvious as it would sound, the MN Senate campaign is still a total toss up, and until well beyond Feb 5th when the DFL chooses it’s nominee and can build some much needed energy, it’s hard to get a good picture on what the general campaign will look like, though it will likely be a good deal of fun to watch regardless.
It seems like Franken has answered a lot of doubters. He’s definitely proven that he’s a serious, viable candidate. Since he’s done so, do you really think Ciresi has a chance, because his best argument seemed to be electability.