The Weekly Wrap 10-19
Lot’s of election news this week to include in The Weekly Wrap™, so let’s get right to it.
♣ ICYMI, on Wednesday I Rated All the Minnesota Senate Races.
♣ Now that everyone’s paperwork is in we have fundraising numbers for all of Minnesota’s congressional candidates.
Quarter 3 money (raised/spent/cash-on-hand):
CD1
Tim Walz: $292,249/$305,043/$789,381
Allen Quist: $25,325/$134,524/$168,679CD2
John Kline: $283,413/$218,967/$1,369,607
Mike Obermueller: $271,298/$128,360/$370,220CD3
Erik Paulsen: $600,975/$458,687/$1,669,974
Brian Barnes: $133,281/$83,324/$106,509CD4
Betty McCollum: $166,941/$156,841/$180,300
Tony Hernandez: $21,835/$3,338/$11,168CD5
Keith Ellison: $367,665/$229,130/$175,199
Chris Fields: $87,673/$65,677/$76,493CD6
Michele Bachmann: $3,247,690/$1,807,544/$3,620,839
Jim Graves: $668,984/$676,330/$614,276CD7
Collin Peterson: $185,275/$221,066/$657,400
Lee Byberg: $86,591/$96,357/$74,384CD8
Chip Cravaack: $398,064/$186,090/$1,131,988
Rick Nolan: $455,993/$79,5667/$464,324
Money totals for this year (raised/spent/cash-on-hand):
CD1
Tim Walz: $1,797,804/$1,026,885/$789,381
Allen Quist: $447,585/$279,003/$168,679CD2
John Kline: $2,124,556/$925,219/$1,369,607
Mike Obermueller: $584,155/$213,935/$370,220CD3
Erik Paulsen: $2,842,371/$1,321,933/$1,669,974
Brian Barnes: $350,310/$250,279/$106,509CD4
Betty McCollum: $828,253/$706,662/$180,300
Tony Hernandez: $44,216/$32,704/$11,168CD5
Keith Ellison: $1,792,532/$1,780,913/$175,199
Chris Fields: $204,941/$128,449/$76,493CD6
Michele Bachmann: $21,695,385/$19,934,973/$3,620,839
Jim Graves: $1,517,418/$903,141/$614,276CD7
Collin Peterson: $1,008,959/$753,834/$657,400
Lee Byberg: $480,417/$423,480/$74,384CD8
Chip Cravaack: $1,870,688/$767,620/$1,131,988
Rick Nolan: $814,801/$350,477/$464,324
♣ YouGov conducted a poll of the Presidential and Senatorial races in Minnesota back in September that I didn’t cover at the time (although the Senate portion of that poll made it into the Senate Race polltracker).
YouGov is out with a new survey of that same group of respondents, 84% of whom were able to be recontacted to be resurveyed. To be clear, this is not what one would consider a normal sampling methodology, but it’s not unprecedented and does provide for a more direct comparison with their previous poll.
YouGov (10/16, 9/21 in parenthesis):
Barack Obama (D-inc) 52 (50)
Mitt Romney (R) 44 (42)
Undecided 8 (13)Amy Klobuchar (D-inc) 55 (49)
Kurt Bills (R) 32 (34)
Undecided 13 (17)
(MoE: ±4.2%)
In both races undecided voters have been come off the fence. In the Presidential race they have split evenly between President Obama and Mitt Romney. In the Senate race though, they are all going to Amy Klobuchar, and Kurt Bills is actually losing support.
The only pollster who had shown Amy Klobuchar polling under 50% was YouGov in their first go around with this sample. In this go round, she’s right back where she’s been all year at 55%.
Kurt Bills has been going backwards though. I’ve been saying all along that I think his floor is 35% and while I still think that’s the case, but it’s been over a month since Bills has polled above 35%. Averaging just the last four polls and he’s at 30% while Amy’s at 57%.
Which naturally leads to the question, could Kurt Bills floor be even lower than 35%?
The other question YouGov asked was a generic US House ballot test.
YouGov (10/16, 9/21 in parenthesis):
Who will you vote for in this year’s U.S. House race?
Democrat 50 (46)
Republican 37 (40)
Undecided 13 (15)
(MoE: ±4.2%)
And while a generic ballot test for US House and one for the Minnesota Legislature are two different things, the trend lines here could be read as a bit of confirmation of the trend lines in the most recent Public Policy Polling survey of the Minnesota legislature that showed Democrats legging out to a 12 point advantage.
♣ And if you want to see actual Minnesota legislature generic ballot numbers, SurveyUSA had them as a part of their recent poll of the state for KSTP.
SurveyUSA (10/15, 9/10 in parenthesis, 7/20 in brackets):
If the 2012 elections for the Minnesota Legislature were held today, would you be more likely to vote for a Republican candidate? a DFL candidate? Independence Party candidate? Or some other candidate?
Republican 36 (38) [40]
DFL 45 (45) [45]
Independence 8 (6) [8]
Other 3 (3) [2]
Undecided 9 (9) [6]
(MoE: ±4.3%)
Republican legislators have been undergoing a steady decline in their support according to SurveyUSA, while the DFL has remained steady at 45%.
Since they’ve been doing it this way so far, they may as well continue, but I’m still perplexed by the decision to include an option for the Independence party in this question. Of the 201 legislative races, 13 of them feature a candidate from the Independence party. That’s just 6.5% of the races.
Knowing that 8% of respondents would conceivably vote for an Independence party candidate may be something that’s nice to know in the abstract, but it doesn’t do any good as far as November 6th goes.
♣ In 2010 the Tea Party fueled the Minnesota Republican parties take over of the legislature. In 2012, Republicans are not seeing the same energy, what does that mean for their chances of holding the legislature?
♣ Thanks to Blois Olson for an actual digital copy of the Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll that the Jim Graves campaign released this week in response to the recent SurveyUSA poll showing Michele Bachmann leading by nine points in Minnesota’s sixth congressional district.
GQR (10/15, 9/10 in parenthesis, 6/26 in brackets):
Michele Bachmann (R-inc) 47 (48) [48]
Jim Graves (D) 45 (46) [43]
Undecided 7 (6) [9]
(MoE: ±4.9%)
That’s four polls of this race so far, three of them internals from the challenger and Michele Bachmann has had the lead in every one of them.
♣ The opposite of this is MN-8, where there have been five polls, four of them internals, and all of them have shown Rick Nolan ahead or tied.
In news that came out this week Norm Coleman’s American Action Network is buying more ad time for MN-8 and once again, it’s a pittance compared to the ad buys announced along with it.
AAN is set to spend $2.2 million on TV and digital advertising in that race [CA-10]; $2 million-plus in New Hampshire [NH-1]; $700,000-plus in New York [NY-27]; and $100,000 in Minnesota [MN-8]. CLF is spending over $450,000 on the Iowa race [IA-3].
♣ Yesterday we learned that the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure board cleared Julie Bunn of charges brought by the Minnesota GOP against a number of DFLers.
The issue being alleged is that photographs used by the DFL and the Senate caucus in mailers are not publicly available on the internets, so there must have been coordination. Either that, or the MNGOP doesn’t know how to use the google.
With Julie Bunn that indeed appears to have been the case, as the CFPD found that all of the photo’s were available on her campaign website. On the internet. Publicly available. I suspect the other cases are likely as flimsy, and that this is just a way to get negative publicity for those DFLers they filed the complaints for. We’ll find out shortly.
♣ Minnesota’s Senate district five will be one that decides control of that chamber and it’s also one that features a post-redistricting incumbent on incumbent throw-down for all the marbles. Here’s an excellent state of the race piece.
♣ Our Vote Our Future released two new TV ads which Jesse has helpfully included in his post about the Minnesota Nice Twibbon campaign so go check those out and then add that Twibbon to your Twitter and Facebook avatars!
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