Vote NO on both Amendments! | LeftMN photo
by Tony Petrangelo
Oct 9, 2012, 12:00 PM

Plurality oppose the Marriage Amendment says new poll

And support for the Photo Voter ID Amendment is at a new low

As I mentioned in last weeks The Weekly Wrap™, Public Policy Polling was going to be releasing a poll of Minnesota this week. Yesterday was that day, or rather, the day that they released the first part of the poll, the part of the poll concerning the two amendments to the Minnesota constitution.

There are Presidential numbers and Senatorial numbers from this poll that are forthcoming, but as they are not yet released, they will have to be the subject of a future post. We are dealing with the present in this post, present polling about an election in the future that is. And with that little adventure in tenses out of the way, we can move on.

PPP (10/8, 9/12 in parenthesis, 6/4 in brackets):

Should the Minnesota Constitution be amended to provide that only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota?

Yes 46 (48) [43]
No 49 (47) [49]
Not sure 5 (5) [7]
(MoE: ±3.2%)

PPP has consistently shown the best numbers for the amendment opponents. They are the only pollster who actually shown the no side in the plurality, and this is now their second poll in which that was the case.

Even the much derided Minnesota Poll showed the yes side with a plurality, and the two most recent SurveyUSA polls showed the amendment at or over 50%.

Looking at PPP’s numbers you can see there really hasn’t been much actual movement, even though the trend lines have bounced around a little.

It may look like the yes side as gained ground relative to PPP’s June poll which showed only 43% supporting the amendment. But that 43% support was the lowest amount of support  for the amendment that anyone has shown all year, so it’s likely that was a bit of an outlier. And in that context, the movement in these polls looks more like noise than anything else.

For some movement that doesn’t appear to be noise at all, we can look at the numbers on the Photo Voter ID amendment.

PPP (10/8, 9/12 in parenthesis, 6/4 in brackets):

Should the Minnesota Constitution be amended to require all voters to present valid photo identification to vote and to require the state to provide free identification to eligible voters?

Yes 51 (56) [58]
No 43 (39) [34]
Not sure 6 (5) [8]
(MoE: ±3.2%)

Since PPP’s June poll support for the amendment is down seven points and opposition to the amendment is up nine points. In four months the amendment has gone from being up 24 points to being up just eight points.

This is great, the only problem is that there is only one month left.

The upside is that the entire eight point gap doesn’t need to be made up for this amendment question to fail. So long as those voting yes are not a majority of all voters in the election the no side doesn’t actually have to win.

The burden is on the side that wants to amend the constitution. They need to get a majority of all voters who cast ballots in the entire election, not just those who vote on the amendment itself.

And that burden of achieving an actual majority is looking like a heavier lift with every day that goes by.

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