In Play
By Mitch Berg
Over the weekend, the Strib announced…
…that Minnesota is pretty dang close.
As the presidential race tightens across the country, a new Star Tribune Minnesota Poll has found that it is narrowing here as well, with President Obama holding a 3-point lead and Republican Mitt Romney making gains in the state.
The poll shows Obama with support from 47 percent of likely voters and Romney earning backing from 44 percent — a lead within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
The piece – by Rachel Stassen-Berger – notes that this is a real tightening from the poll last month:
Last month, Obama had an 8-percentage point advantage in the Minnesota Poll. Romney has apparently cut into the Democrat’s advantage among women since then and picked up support from Minnesotans who were previously undecided or said they would vote for a third-party candidate.
Independents, on the other hand, are leaning more toward Obama. Barely a third supported him last month, but that number has grown to 43 percent. Romney’s support among independents remains virtually unchanged, with 13 percent of that group remaining undecided.
That very well may be the change over the past month.
But here’s the other: the partisan sample changed. It changed a lot:
The poll comes as more Minnesotans identify as Republicans, which could add to Romney’s support. A month ago, the poll’s sample was 41 percent Democrat, 28 percent Republican and 31 percent independent or other. In this survey, 38 percent of respondents identified themselves as Democrat, 33 percent Republican and 29 percent independent or other. Minnesota does not have voter registration by party, and party self-identification fluctuates as events sway voters’ opinions.
Voter opinions certainly can cause the change. Lots of that seemed to happen.
And officials from Mason-Dixon – which has taken over the MInnesota Poll since the Strib’s comically inept performance in the 2010 race – are pretty adamant that last month’s poll was D+13 not out of pro-DFL perfidy, but because, well, that’s how many Democrats they found as a percentage of the population.
Does it make sense that it dropped 8% in a month?
Good question. One I’d love to ask the good folks from Mason Dixon. After the election, naturally.
But for now? D+5 is more or less in line with the state’s turnout in 2010.
My big question: will the Strib run their traditional “Sunday Before The Election” poll? I’ll try to find out.
P.S.: Our friend and regular commenter Kermit pops up in the article!:
Republican Kermit Hauge disagrees.
“Barack Obama has been an absolute disaster as president,” said Hauge, 54. He cited the unemployment rate, rising use of food stamps and Obama’s positions on taxes and health care among his reasons for supporting Romney. The clerical worker from New Hope said he didn’t start out a Romney fan but will now vote for him as a better alternative.
From your mouth to God’s ears, Kerm.
October 29th, 2012 at 6:41 am
Unfortunately, the majority of seniors are the low information voters that the DemocRATs are targeting. They are generally not tech savvy, so all of their news come from WDFL and the Red Star. Only a few of them dig deeper to find the real facts. If I just look at my mother and my in-laws, 82, 85 and 84 respectively, they are brainwashed, in fact, my mother in law, who I swear was the model for Edith Bunker’s character, thinks that Barack and Michelle are her friends because of all of the letters, certificates and other useless junk she has received from them. They were utterly disgusted with me when I pointed out what a huge waste of taxpayer money it was. My f-i-l had a heart valve replaced two years ago, ending up with an infection that just finally cleared up. Having read the healthcare bill, I pointed out to him that under Obamacare, he most likely would have been denied that operation in the first place. He called me a racist.
October 29th, 2012 at 10:56 am
Well, I’m not sure I buy it for a minute. There are just too many Lena Dunhams living in the Cities to let this state turn red.
October 29th, 2012 at 11:58 am
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, MN goes 52-48 for Romney. Willing to take bets for charity
October 29th, 2012 at 1:26 pm
As Dog Gone claimed: goes by the single non de plume of Kermit
PoD, be careful, you seem to be the one making the charitable donation most of the time over your overaggressive predictions.
October 29th, 2012 at 4:36 pm
It the taxpayers money, er I mean my money I’m putting up so SILENCE!
October 30th, 2012 at 7:30 pm
I wish Rachel had actually quoted me. I said “23 million unemployed, 47 million on food stamps, $16 trillion debt, takeover of healthcare and taxing people he promised not to tax.” At least she spelled my name right.
I also told her Klobuchar would win because she’s too innocuous to offend Minnesotans, and a vote for Amy was a vote for puppies. She laughed.