Waiting For The End Of The World
By Mitch Berg
According to a KSTP/SurveyUSA poll, Republicans have passed Democrats among likely voters in Minnesota:
The SurveyUSA poll, commissioned by KSTP-TV, found that 36 percent of likely voters identify themselves as Republicans, while 35 percent say they’re Democrats. Twenty-four percent call themselves independents.
Of course, it’s really a tosser; there’s a four point margin of error. But I strongly suspect those 24 points worth of indies will erode, and move right, when they get the tax bill that the Supreme Court of Minnesota (SCOM) has dumped back in their lap.
By means of comparison, a Star Tribune Minnesota Poll conducted a year ago found that 37 percent of Minnesotans called themselves independents, 36 percent said they were Democrats and 20 percent identified themselves as Republicans.
While that sounds like a huge surge, it needs to be tempered by the fact that the Minnesota Poll isn’t so much a “poll” as “morale-building tool for the DFL”.
But the surge in enthusiasm – especially compared to the dead rooms the GOP faced in 2006 and 2008 – is notable:
The SurveyUSA poll also found that Republican gubernatorial endorsee Tom Emmer is ahead of his three DFL rivals, although the significance of the results is hard to gauge this early in the campaign.
The poll – which, let’s be honest, is fairly meaningless at six months out – shows Emmer with an eight point lead over Dayton, 11 over Entenza.
In matchup against Margaret Anderson Kelliher, Mark Dayton and Matt Entenza, Emmer was supported by 41 percent of likely voters. The DFLers were each backed by about one-third, while Independence Party candidate Tom Horner was supported by about 10 percent.
Early polling almost always shows the “Independence” Party – the former party of Jesse Ventura, and which has had absolutely zero impact as anything but a spoiler since Ventura left office – with a disproportionate impact; a “Minnesota Poll” conducted the week before the 2002 election, at the twilight of Ventura’s era, showed Palwenty and his opponents, DFLer Roger Moe and Indy Tim Penny, in a statistical tie; Penny shed close to 40% of his numbers by election day (if you assume, again, that the MinnPoll is anything but a DFL morale booster, and I do not).
But it seems the time is right for a solid conservative – especially one who is tuned to take advantage of the sticker shock the DFL Legislature is about to dump on the electorate.
May 7th, 2010 at 1:48 pm
I think the correct headline should be “Democrats fall below Repubilcans”.
By the way…I was a lukewarm supporter of the other guy, but I am really warming up to Emmer.
Hey, any thoughts on Conan O’Brian flying to Mpls to raise money for Crazy Al Franken? If Conan is interested in Minnesota politics and the concerns of our citizens, perhaps he should hold his fundraiser in someplace other then a mansion in Minneapolis.
May 8th, 2010 at 4:18 am
People are figuring out that today’s Democrats are not the same party that their grandparents voted for. If Humphrey were alive today, he would be a Republican.
Case in point – the mayors and police chiefs for Mpls and St. Paul announcing concern for illegal immigrants. My husband was a Mpls cop until he nearly died 5 years ago in the line of duty. Rybak won’t even talk to us, and the city claims it is “nothing personal” – they are just following state law as they try to keep us from getting proper medical care or financial help – and they have opposed efforts to change the law, to close the loophole that allows them to abandon us, because they say that city taxpayers can’t afford to take care of my husband. Yet they aggressively lobby to protect illegal immigrants from being subject to the rule of law.
Never in a million years would Hubert Humphrey have supported illegal immigrants while turning his back on a disabled cop.
May 8th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
I would disagree that Democrats are supporting illegal immigrants, but rather favor better and more enforcement than we have been seeing of existing laws.
Per politifact.com, and Florida candidate Rubio, a large segment of illegals come not across the border but enter legally, and then overstay their permission to be here. I’d like to see us enforce removing that segment of the illegal population for example instead of engaging in constitutionally questionable practices.
As to who belongs to what party……..I note that in the Republican primaries this past week in North Carolina, Indiana and Ohio, the tea party candidates were shut out, the incumbents won. This argues against the tea party and more conservative / less moderate Republicans being successful.
May 8th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
sorry – the second paragraph, first sentence should have read “not sneaking across the border illegally”.
May 9th, 2010 at 12:12 am
Dog Gone said:
“favor better and more enforcement than we have been seeing of existing laws”
It is whitewash like this that lead me to believe your observations are unreliable, no matter how many paragraphs you use to express them.
You really like ‘politifact.com’, don’t you. Is it because they tell you what you want to hear?