I observed to the source that that should have been nothing new for Emmer; he’d come back from a bigger margin in the previous nine months or so, from being way back in the pack at the Central Committee straw poll about this time last year, where Marty Seifert won by a margin many considered insurmountable.<\/p>\n
The source expressed confidence it could be done.<\/p>\n
He was, statistically, exactly right. Emmer brought the race back from a 12 point blowout to a near-tie, with numbers that pretty steadily improved – according to the party’s own internal polling.<\/p>\n
Steadily?<\/p>\n
On October 11, I held a “Bloggers For Emmer” event at an undisclosed location in the western subs.\u00a0 It had been ten busy weeks since my off-the-record conversation with my source in the campaign.\u00a0 An Emmer functionary told me – off the record – that it was now a four point race.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
A week later, within ten days of the election, the same internal poll said the race\u00a0was a statistical dead heat.<\/p>\n
Then came the last-minute hit polls from the Humphrey Instititute, the Strib and Saint Cloud State – after which Emmer released his internal polling, which was reinforced by a Survey USA poll that more or less reinforced the internal polls’ results.<\/p>\n
And then came the election.<\/p>\n
Last week, David Brauer at the MinnPost interviewed Emmer campaign manager Cullen Sheehan.\u00a0 As part of the piece, he graphed the respective polls: Emmer’s internal polling (orange), the Strib poll (wide dashes) and the HHH poll (dots), showing the indicated size of the Dayton lead.<\/p>\n
![\"Graph](\"http:\/\/www.minnpost.com\/client_files\/alternate_images\/16140\/mp_main_wide_Dec10_Brauer_EmmerPollingLineGraph_452.jpg\")
Graph used by permission of the MinnPost<\/p><\/div>\n
Brauer:<\/p>\n
Although \u201cinternal numbers\u201d often become propagandistic leaks, Sheehan insists the data was not for public pre-election consumption. Though he wound up releasing the most favorable result during the campaign, it proved prescient, and two independent pollsters subsequently showed similar results.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And while Brauer points out that internal numbers “aren’t holy” – and many leftybloggers openly guffawed when Sheehan released them – the GOP’s internal numbers have a long record of accuracy, in my experience.\u00a0 In 2002, when the Strib poll had Roger Moe measuring the drapes in the mansion, a GOP source leaked me internal polling showing that Pawlenty was tied and rising.\u00a0 And internal polling released to a group of bloggers a month before the election showed Chip Cravaack pulling close to Jim Oberstar<\/a>; numbers that the campaign asked be kept off the record showed that with “leaners”, Cravaack was actually leading.<\/p>\n
So for all the leftyblogs’ caterwauling about “push polling”, the GOP’s internal polls – as seen both publicly and behind the scenes – called things as they were.\u00a0 There’s a reason for that; parties need to accurate polling to help them allocate scarce resources effectively.\u00a0 The DFL has not released their internal polling – but the Dayton campaign’s behavior indicates to me that they also saw Emmer’s late surge, leading them to re-roll-out the “Drunk Driving Ad” (the closest the Dayton campaign ever came to a coherent policy statement, with full irony intended).<\/p>\n
But neither sides’ internal polling is affiliated with a major media outlet.\u00a0 The Strib, Minnesota Public Radio and MinnPost all have symbiotic relationships with Princeton, the Humphrey Institute and Saint Cloud State, respectively (though to be accurate the MinnPost only paid for three questions in the SCSU poll, and those were, according to Brauer, on ranked-choice voting).\u00a0 Those relationships, presumably, exist so that the news outlets can get “their” results out to the public <\/em>first.<\/p>\n
No matter how they’re arrived at, or so it seems.<\/p>\n
Brauer confirms after the fact what my sources in the campaign told me, off the record, at the time; it was a real numerical rollercoaster ride:<\/p>\n
Although \u201cinternal numbers\u201d often become propagandistic leaks, Sheehan insists the data was not for public pre-election consumption. Though he wound up releasing the most favorable result during the campaign, it proved prescient, and two independent pollsters subsequently showed similar results.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really is, internally, a compass,\u201d Sheehan says of the campaign\u2019s polling.<\/p>\n
Emmer\u2019s own numbers show a candidate trailing \u2014 sometimes badly \u2014 for nearly the entire race.<\/p>\n
On July 28 \u2014 three weeks after Emmer\u2019s interminable \u201ctip credit\u201d debacle \u2014 the Republican trailed Dayton by 11 points. Ironically, the Star Tribune poll \u2014 which Republicans say overstates DFL support \u2014 had it closer: Dayton plus-10.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It was a demonstrable fact that the Strib poll oversampled DFL voters by a big margin – but that’s a poll-technique discussion to be held some other time.<\/p>\n
In the wake of the double-digit gap, Sheehan took over as campaign manager. But by early October, the internal numbers had barely budged: Emmer was still down 7. A Strib survey taken a week or so earlier showed the Republican down 9 \u2014 again, pretty close to what the campaign was seeing.<\/p>\n
Finally, on Oct. 13, Emmer got his first great inside news: he was only down 1. But the next media poll (SurveyUSA\/KSTP) had him down 5, and an Oct. 18 internal poll repeated that number. It was two weeks before Election Day.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And then came the Big Three media polls, one after the other – the Strib, SCSU and the Humphrey polls – showing Emmer 9, 10 and 12 points down, respectively.\u00a0 At which point Sheehan opted to release the internal numbers – which were shortly reinforced by SUSA.<\/p>\n
Sheehan:<\/p>\n