Talk Elections

http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=5fc5872d-1780-4b0f-b134-241d0caac1a9

This does not surprise me, but apparently it surprises most of the political class. Where's BRTD?  :)  Anyway, like magic RCP bounces MN-8 into the tossup category, as its over/under number bounces up to 65.

If I had to guess, Oberstar is going down. His handling of the nexus of abortion and HCR combined with the environment, and his marginal district, is just a bit too much for him I suspect.

This strikes me as the type of district where SUSA's GOP bias comes in. All their accurate House polls were in the suburbs.

This district isn't really marginal, no Republican has carried it since 1994 (by that I'm referring to statewide candidates. Coleman, Pawlenty, all downballot Republicans all lost it every time they ran.)

Good.  Cravaaaaaaaaaaack is another good Republican.

Could this mean that MN-07 is also in danger? Geographically similar, with MN-07 being very Republican, relatively.

No, the Dem incumbent (Peterson I think his name is) there does his own thing, and the big Blue Babe district marches to its own drummer. It is sort of like ME-2, quite idiosyncratic. Heck, that global warming skeptic Snowguy lives there.

Another odd SurveyUSA House poll. The district is more Democratic leaning than it's PVI indicates.

If Oberstar were less entrenched, he would probably be toast. He's vulnerable though, because the pro lifers are after him as a traitor to the cause. MN-8 has been steadily trending GOP. Obama carried it by an unimpressive 54-46 (just a tad more than his national margin), and the national swing this year from 2008 will swamp that spread.

But it also seems like the kind of place that one would assume would trend hard Republican this year, no?

Tons of pro-choice candidates have won this district and it elects tons of pro-choicers on the local level. Abortion is not that big of an issue here. The pro-lifers who don't like Oberstar are the ones who normally vote Republican anyway and I doubt they voted for Al Franken (who carried the district.)


I'd bet the Tea Party is about as popular in Duluth as it is where I live.

Rural, blue collar, white, etc

Duluth isn't rural, nor is it particularly more blue collar than most places really.

I was referring to the district as a whole.

I suppose a shockingly close result isn't out of the question (Oberstar is getting on and that's not a good thing when a big swing is on) but I have trouble seeing this, especially with Dayton leading in the polls (however narrowly). I mean, obviously, if it is anywhere near this close or if (heaven forbid) Oberstar actually loses then we're dealing with a landslide and - probably - a near total Democratic collapse in the Mid West.

Mmm... hmm... that's true enough and part of the decades-long general shift in the geography of Democratic support as the party morphs into something other than the odd coalition it used to be (part pale imitation of a social democratic party (the relevant part in this case), part party-of-the-rural-south). But the change here has been slower than in most other mining areas and the old base vote less prone to fracture and rebel.

Some of the trend is due to the iron range having a lower and lower percentage slice of the district, and the Twin City exurbs having a higher and higher slice, due to population shifts. It is just a matter of time before the GOP margins in the southern part of the district over-match the Dem ones in the north, given current voting patterns. So are the iron range folks going to vote has heavily as the exurban folks vis a vis the past, and in particular 2008? We shall see.

Yeah, there is a shift in the population balance in the district and we can expect this to have an impact on its politics. But it's not as dramatic as you think. In 2000 St. Louis county made up 32.6% of the district, that was down to 30.4% by 2006-2008. The two main Twin Cities commuting counties made up 11.8% in 2000, up in 2006-2008 to 13.7%.

They were already going to be slaughtered, the question is by how much.

Interesting, though, how much things change so quickly. Obama did very well in the Midwest, surprisingly well, in fact.

Which is why the trend against the Democrats is strongest here.

Yeah I was about to point that out. There's three State Senate seats in the northeastern corner from Duluth onward. There's one in the exurbs. And it's held by a Democrat (though he's likely losing no doubt.) Also not everywhere is working class, in addition to Duluth liberals you have some latte liberal types along the coast. Cook County is a huge latte liberal haven, as are some northern towns like Ely.

Anyway reports from a local progressive blog show that Oberstar and the Iron Range machine are definitely gearing up for a strong GOTV movement.

To merely lose seats is not to be slaughtered. To be slaughtered is when you lose a load of places that you have (or at least had) no business losing in.


Ever thought these things may be related in some way?

Speaking of which it doesn't appear to be as bad here as elsewhere or else Emmer might lead in some polls.

Now I know the standard reply will be that he's a bad candidate...but the whole point is that if it's so bad you don't have to be a good candidate to win. Sharron Angle obviously isn't a good candidate (though granted she'd also be losing to basically anyone except Reid.) And Al did make a good point in that Dayton has to be way further ahead in this district than these numbers.

Yes, the swing seems more muted in Minnesota than the rest of the Great Lakes states.

http://mncampaignreport.com/diary/7634/cravaack-campaign-crumbling-in-cd-8

Well, Obama was a sort of hometown hero.

Yeah, we should believe the Minnesota Progressive Project, not the polls.  Obviously, the polls are the ones with the political axe to grind.  Not the internal "poll" that claims Oberstar is winning undecideds without telling us if he's even winning the topline.

No, we should believe Oberstar's internal, which shows him "up 3-1 with independents" but that he refuses to release.

Undecideds, not independents. Do I believe that the undecideds (a relative handful of voters in any event), are breaking 3-1 for Oberstar?  No.

The Minnesota GOP doesn't seem like a great state party to me. People like Pawlenty and Bachman are not the kind of politicians one would expect from the MNGOP.

Something to consider is that even if Cravaack has an early lead St. Louis County is always the last part of the state to report. And I'm sure if it's still close they'll "find" a bunch of votes somewhere. Also that Dayton is hitting that area hard as key to his GOTV strategy and that his running mate is from there.

This would be a real upset - the DFL has no business losing this seat (to paraphrase another post in this thread).

Well from what I heard tonight Duluth is pretty revved up.

Just about the worst result of the night. Though I guess it's largely about turnout differentials?

Yeah. I quite liked Oberstar, as far as you can like senior American congressmen. 'Rural' districts can often be remarkably unsentimental when incumbents get too old though. I mentally called it last night when I saw that he was badly underperforming in Lake county.

Quite.


He underran even in St. Louis County, so I doubt it.

We have an awesome bench in that district, but we'll also have to see how redistricting affects it.

Sh!t.

Assuming it's bipartisan incumbent-protection map, it'll probably trade Duluth and the Iron range with the current 7th for some of the 7th's more Conservative West-central MN counties.  It'll also probably push into the current 6th a bit and become a relatively safe Republican district (for Minnesota anyway).