Minnesota Poll shows Hatch and Pawlenty tied
The latest Minnesota Poll shows Mike Hatch and Tim Pawlenty tied in the governor's race at 42% each. I'm not really surprised by the closeness of the race. The state isn't doing horribly, but there are a lot of issues (transportation, health care, "no new taxes") that aren't going well. There's no clear direction.
A couple things jumped out at me when I read the crosstabs. First, Pawlenty is hugely popular with the 18-34 group; what's up with that? Second, there are more undecided women than men at this point, which I see as a good thing for Hatch. Hatch, like most Democrats, has a lead among women, so if these undecided women break for Hatch, he could be up slightly. We will see.
posted by MN Politics Guru @ 11:32
3 Comments:
What are the polls showing in the 2nd CD, Rowley vs. Kline?
A Democratic poll showed Kline leading by only 48% to 42%. Another poll (I forget who commissioned it) showed Kline ahead by 46% to 37%.
Regarding Pawlenty's lead among younger voters, I remember that the July Strib Poll put Mark Kennedy ahead of Klobuchar by 63%-16% among the 18-34 age bracket. That can't possibly be accurate. Generally speaking, the younger generation in Minnesota seems more Republican-leaning than the older generation that grew up on Humphrey and Mondale, which is a problem for the DFL in the long term.
Other observations. There seems to be a straight correlation between income levels and voting intentions. The more money you make, the more likely you are to support Slippery Tim. The less income you have, the more likely to like Populist Mike. (Pawlenty's bevy of regressive fees and cigarette taxes might have something to do with it too.)
Education levels break down as they typically do in D vs. R races.
The Minnesota Poll is worthless. It's been deteriorating ever since that 2000 poll showing Gore leading by 10 points the weekend before the election, but really seems to have bottomed out now. While I don't doubt that Hatch and Pawlenty are neck-and-neck, the internals simply don't jive with reality. There is no way that either Pawlenty or Kennedy leads by a 2-1 or 3-1 margin among college-age voters....and this is the second time in two months that the Minnesota Poll has showed that to be the case.
In the interest of professional integrity, the administrator of the Minnesota Poll should throw out his/her sample when they so clearly don't jive with common sense rather than report them and give the GOP continued ammunition to discredit the polls.
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