Princeton Survey Research for Minneapolis Star Tribune (9/30-10/2, likely voters, 9/10-12 in parentheses):
Al Franken (D): 43 (37)
Norm Coleman (R-inc): 34 (41)
Dean Barkley (IP): 18 (13)
(MoE: ±3.7%)
OK, the Minnesota senate race is officially making my head hurt. In the last 24 hours, we’ve seen a SurveyUSA poll give Coleman an unbeatable 10-point edge and a Dem internal give Franken a fragile 2-point edge… and now Minnesota’s principal newspaper (the Star Tribune) finds a 9-point lead for Franken, a huge turnaround from a 4-point Coleman lead two weeks ago during the height of Palinmania.
Like the SurveyUSA poll, this poll sees Barkley taking a bigger chunk out of the electorate. Interestingly, though, in this poll Barkley seems to be taking an equal bite out of each party: Franken and Coleman both get the support of 78% of their respective party members, while 12% of both Republicans and Democrats support Barkley. Instead, the real source of Franken’s success in this poll seems to be Coleman’s job approval rating, which has drifted down into Gordon Smith territory at 38%.
The presidential race numbers from the Star Tribune poll won’t be released until Sunday, but somehow I suspect they’ll be a bit better than the 1-point McCain lead that SUSA just reported.
someone needs to come clean up the skull fragments and brain pieces in this room, my head just exploded.
By a few minutes. Here’s some of what I was gonna say:
This race is getting strange by the minute. The only thing we can really peg down is Dean Barkley is polling in the tens. Beyond that, it’s anyone’s ballgame on who’s leading this race.
Why can’t pollsters get a decent grasp of this race? I mean, it’s not like this is the first time in the history of America that we’ve had a strong 3rd party candidate in the race. They’re are going to outliers, sure, if several different supposedly reliable pollsters are showing these wild of fluctuations in such a short span of time, they’re just not doing their jobs.
As mentioned above, the Pollster.com average might be the only halfway decent measure of the race, which at the moment says that Coleman has a 3.5-point lead, but is barely cracking 40%, which seems reasonable (although I think that’s without this most recent poll).
No way McCain is ahead in MN! I believe the other two polls are right, and Franken is really ahead.
Coleman is unpopular and Franken has had a good run lately. And the economy is working for him. I think Franken would have won with a high single digit if the election was today.
with whom does he caucus? Does anyone from MN have an idea?
Not that I want him to, I greatly prefer Franken. But is it possible that a Coleman loss helps us no matter who beats him? I really don’t have any feel for Barkley’s politics.
I love looking at these numbers like everyone else, but I have to caution people about putting too much faith into Star Tribune polling. In 2004, just days before the election, the Star Tribune pegged the presidential race at 49-41 in Kerry’s favor– a margin that would go on to shrink to 51.09-47.61. There are more examples than this, the AG, SOS and Governor races in 2006 all saw overly optimistic polling from the Strib.
I think they might be using a different firm than they used in 2004 but just be warned that Star Tribune polls have a history of inflating numbers for Democrats.
Diary about this poll, let’s split the difference and call this race a tie.
oh god…. The one race that is like the marquee race for everyone in the country due to Franken is just impossible to follow.
http://www.startribune.com/pol…
Obama 55
McCain 37
Would be great but I don’t believe it for a second. Obama up? Definantly. Up comfortably? Sure. Up 18? No way. IMO this throws the results of yesterday’s Star Tribune Minnesota Senate poll into doubt.