Alliance for a Better Minnesota released a new poll conducted by Grove Insight Opinion Research and Communication Strategy on the Senate race in Minnesota. The poll shows Al Franken leading Norm Coleman 44 to 42 statewide, which is within the 4.4% margin of error. This poll demonstrates what we’ve been seeing pretty consistently lately: this is a tight race. While clearly this does not show that Franken is beating Coleman, the narrow lead seen in this poll does carry some added weight considering the fairly bad media cycles Franken has weathered this past month. If this poll is to be believed, he has weathered this quite well without any noticeable damage to his viability.
I do have to say, however, that the job performance reviews of the state’s elected officials are a bit puzzling. The poll returns approval/disapproval ratings for Coleman, Pawlenty and Bush that are quite a bit lower than I’ve seen in recent polls. Just a month ago MPR reported Pawlenty’s job approval to be at 55% with diapproval at 39%; this poll essentially reverses that with 40% approval and 56% disapproval. While I would like to believe that Pawlenty’s handling of the veto override and his galavanting around the country for McCain has sent his approval plummeting, this dramatic a drop is unlikely. The poll doesn’t look to have a biased sample, however, as Amy Klobuchar’s traditionally astronomic approval ratings are reported as lower than recent polls have shown. So, this may just be an awkwardly phrased question coupled with a legitimate drop in across the board approval due to the constant news of economic trouble. Norm Coleman’s approval/disapproval is reported as 32/59 which is, again, too good to believe.
Bottom line: this is encouraging but must be taken with a grain of salt given the approval/disapproval breakdowns and ABM’s liberal bent. As I’ve said before, a particular group pushing a particular poll doesn’t taint the data, but it does bear mention.
You can read the whole release with cross-tabs below the fold and read up on more from Alliance for a Better Minnesota (they do great work) here.
Sean Adds: I’m curious to see a little more demographic data on this poll. Geographical, age, gender, cross tabs etc. It’s obviously a positive for Franken, but I’d like to see some more data on the poll.
Alliance for a Better Minnesota Releases New Statewide Poll:
(Saint Paul) – Alliance for a Better Minnesota today released a new statewide poll conducted by Grove Insight Opinion Research and Communication Strategy:
Economy, Health Care and Iraq Top Issues to Minnesota Voters:
The economy and jobs 21%
The high cost of health care 15%
The war in Iraq 14%
The high cost of gas and energy 12%
Education and the schools 12%
Protecting us from a terrorist attack 7%
Taxes and government spending 7%
Illegal immigration 4%
The Race for the U.S. Senate is a Dead Heat in Minnesota:
Franken 44%
Coleman 42%
Undecided 14%
Minnesota Job Performance Reviews of Elected Officials:
Pos. Neg.
U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar 50% 36%
Governor Tim Pawlenty 40% 56%
U.S. Senator Norm Coleman 32% 59%
President Bush 18% 82%
This analysis is based on 500 interviews among likely 2008 general election voters in
Minnesota. The survey was conducted March 13-16 2008. The margin of error is plus or
minus 4.4 percentage points at the 95% level of confident. The margin of error for
subgroups varies and is higher.
They tried to rationalize the difference in Job Approval v Performance numbers as the difference between a popularity contest versus specific questions about how the respondents felt about the performance of the candidates.
I’m curious to see the questions, the gender and geographic breakdown and the party breakdown. Sean
Please. If you think this poll is even close to being accurate, you’re nuts. No poll has shown Pawlenty’s approval rating that low — not even close. No poll has even shown Bush’s approval rating to be that low. This is a fake poll done by a DFL pollster in attempt to get some positive news for Franken. Take your DFL glasses off and get real. Good grief.
While I’m highly inclined to doubt that Pawlenty’s numbers are that low (Like Bill Clinton, he’s too good at telling people what they want to hear), outside of Rush-land Bush’s numbers have been very low for a very long while.
This poll is from a Franken front group. I asked if they polled on Franken’s approval rating and they said they were not releasing that information. Franken’s approval rating must have really low if this group wouldn’t release it. I didn’t ask about Franken’s donations, nor was it disclosed in the conference call that Franken had given this group almost $10,000.
Michael-
First, let’s call you ‘Kristen’ so people don’t get confused. Most of us are in the know here. If accepting thousands of dollars a month from active campaigns means one can’t be listened to, where does that leave you? And before the weaseling begins, did_you or did_you_not accept several thousand dollars, either a month or in one time payments, from Kennedy campaign and from the Bachmann campaign in the last cycle?
On the other hand, Michael ‘Kristen’ Brodkerb here does have a point. Why release one candidates approves/disapproves and not the others?
I hope that no one actually paid for that poll because its a worthless POS.
Where are the crosstabs? It would be very interesting to see what share of Dems, Repubs, Inds, and Conservs, Mods, Libs, each candidate wins. In any case, w/o crosstabs and a better explanation of methodology, there is no way the selected results of this poll can be evaluated. If anything, the Klobuchar approval ratings really betrays it as an oversample of Democratic voters sample.
And by the way, who is (are?) Grove Insight Opinion Research and Communication Strategy anyways? Looking over their website, the client list is not that impressive…
Michael ‘Kristen’ Brodkerb shoukd investigate the rumors in Hollywood about norm and his wife… he would get some serious page views if it ever came out.
Why believe ANYTHING Brodkorb offers here?
More seriously, if we can discount ‘Kristen’ Brodkerb’s ramblings, there is an important question. Franken showed movement in good directions in the last independent poll that came out, on his positives/negatives, and his support.
So is the ABM poll just sloppy, hiding something, or just supposed to be a puff piece? (albeit one with some more solid grounding than Kristen’s predictions of a Kennedy victory in 06)
Over a decade ago, Jeff Greenfield, when he was still with ABC News, offered a truth rarely heard in media circles (and I’ll have to paraphrase, sorry): ‘we need to stop taking so many polls, stop reporting on so many polls, and stop believing so many polls’. In other words, let’s all take a breather here and wait until June at the earliest to start examining any polls at all. Even then, considering the sterling performance of polls too numerous to count during the presidential primaries (yes, that is sarcasm), we need to try and not base our conversations on the principle of “my poll can beat up your poll”.
Wow so you back unscientific polls to continue your dream that Franken has a change. Survey USA recently did a poll where only 26% of the people they polled were Republicans and Coleman defeated him by 10%. Furthermore using your caution of how this poll must have a little flaw if Amy K has just 50% approval because the question is worded differently. If a bunch of independent polls come up with far higher numbers (Bush for example breaks 30% in most polls and Pawlenty breaks 50% easily) maybe they didn’t poll a normal cross section.
I didn’t see a tab for party afflication. Maybe they were polling their own people. So instead do an in depth on the Survey USA poll where Coleman has that 10% lead taken at the same time.
Oh I forgot you must still be at that PARTEEEE to celebrate Obama’s eleven point win of the New Hampshire Primary.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Walter;
Did you jump the fence?
If you average the last few polls taken (not including the Stan poll outlier) Al and Norm are almost tied at 48% to 46% and well within the margin of error of each other.
I bet Pawlenty’s numbers will drop well below 40% when Minnesotans see the pictures of the I35 bridge that show the U-10 plates were bent and bowed as far back as 2003.
Could that be part of the reason they don’t want to hold public hearings?
Thank goodness MNDOT shut down the bridge in St Cloud after noticing bent and bowed gusset plates.
HCDFL:
I do go looking, but I keep missing all of these pro Democrat polls. The one I noticed is that survey USA has Coleman with the 10 point lead despite the fact that Franken has been running commericals and Coleman hasn’t seriously campaigned.
The one that shows the trend has been Coleman’s margin getting wider.
Why have public hearing when there are already three investigations taking place. Once the experts figure out what happened then they can be questioned in public by lawmakers who disagree. For example part of the problem with the 9-11 commission was that one of the members of the commission was a person who should have been on the witness stand and had her views seriously debated (Jamie Gorlick from the Clinton Justice Department). These investigations including the one run by the federal government are far better than any one run the Democrats. Who I forgot they paid for a fourth by a law firm that has clients who are suing the state about a bridge (Umh I wonder what they will try to claim)
Just why don’t you sign your entire paycheck to state and have it spent on a public hearing. I prefer the taxes be spent on roads and bridges instead.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN