MN-Sen: Major Volatility

Minnesota Public Radio recently commissioned two polls of the Minnesota Senate race, coinciding just before and after the VP debate — and the results were wildly different. Let’s take a look.

MPR/Humphrey Institute (9/29-10/1, likely voters, 8/7-17 in parens):

Al Franken (D): 31 (41)

Norm Coleman (R-inc): 40 (40)

Dean Barkley (I): 14 (8)

(MoE: ±5.3%)

And here’s what they found in their next poll (10/3-5):

Al Franken (D): 41

Norm Coleman (R-inc): 37

Dean Barkley (I): 14

(MoE: ±4.8%)

MPR spins the dramatically different results as being influenced by “the extraordinary financial crisis and the resulting congressional response along with the polarizing reaction to the Vice Presidential debate on Oct. 2”.

Maybe. Or maybe there’s a flaw with their methodology. If anything, we’ve seem some dramatically varying polls out of Minnesota in recent days, so it’s hard to trust anything other than the Pollster.com composite. And guess what? It’s tightening.

5 thoughts on “MN-Sen: Major Volatility”

  1. Six years ago, Paul Wellstone seemed to go from solid leads to a one or two pointer and then back for the whole campaign.  It took Wellstone’s death and the faux outrage over his “political” funeral to put Norm Coleman in the seat.  Now it is Coleman who is playing the Wellstone role but unlike Wellstone he drops into small deficits rather than small leads.

    Any state that elects Jesse Ventura Governor shouldn’t find Al Franken too show business.  With just under four weeks to go, this is clearly up for grabs.

  2. Have any of you seen the press conference where Coleman’s spokesman refuses to answer simple yes or no questions about Norm Coleman receiving gifts?  It’s awful.  I wish it could be cut down into a tv spot, just run bits from the conference, all that would be needed.  I wish I could find the link.

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