Can Bush Take Minnesota?

Powerline discusses polls that show Bush trailing Kerry in Minnesota by a 12 point margin. The latest Minnestoa Poll shows Kerry with 50 to Bush’s 38. However, the Rasmussen poll shows a much tighter race, with Kerry pulling off a narrow 47% over Bush’s 44%.

I’m inclined to believe the Rassmussen poll more, for several reasons. The first being that the Star-Tribune poll showed results consistant with the Rasmussen poll until the media bombardment of the Clarke testimony hit, causing Bush’s numbers to sink. You’re going to see a skewed result in the middle of a major negative media blitz like that, but that doesn’t bear on the overall conditions of the electorate. My guess is that the collapse of Clarke’s testimony has pushed this issue out of the forefront of many Minnesotan’s political consciousness, and Bush’s numbers are right back to where they were.

Second, the Minnesota Poll is historically biased towards the Democrats. The current poll shows a sampling ratio of 53% Democrats and 39% Republicans which doesn’t match with the more even partisan split in Minnesota. Even with that partisan tilting, the pre-Clarke polling revealed a much closer race than the post-Clarke polling.

Powerline notes that they’ve seen private polling data that is consistant with the Star-Tribune poll. However, if that polling data is also effected by the negative coverage from the Clarke testimony, then the same skewing effect is likely to have influenced those results as well.

My guess is that the long-term trends don’t match with the short-term sample of the Minnesota Poll. Kerry is certainly ahead by a good margin, but the Bush campaign hasn’t yet hit Minnesota in full force yet. If the economy continues to add jobs and the situation in Iraq stabilizes, Bush is going to have much momentum in this race, while Kerry’s support is mainly based on those who dislike Bush rather than particularly admire Kerry.

That’s Bush’s problem and promise in this race. John Kerry is a non-event. Very few people are voting for Kerry because they personally like him. The Democrats could run a ficus plant so long as enough Democrats thought that it could beat Bush. This isn’t a Bush/Kerry race as much as it is a referendum on the President. Even then, Bush is in trouble. He needs to be proactive in managing his image and using his better numbers on issues of leadership to sell his agenda.

Bush can still win Minnesota, but he’s going to have to work for it, and work hard.

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