Races to watch on election day; MN Senate edition

I want to start with a bit of clarification, I omitted from the House edition post, the methodology behind the three metrics I'm using and why I'm only using those three metrics. To be clear, these were not chosen at random, but rather have had the most predictive power in past Minnesota elections that I've analysed.

A few notes about those metrics.

When I refer to the amount of money raised by a candidate, I talking about the amount raised in individual contributions this year, not total amount raised or cash on hand or anything else. This metric gives us some idea of how much support a candidate has in the absence of polling.

This is by no means a perfect measure, but it has decent predictive power in that incumbents who raise significantly more than their opponent rarely lose, and those who raise significantly less, are in danger of losing.

The other metrics I'm using are; 2006 vote shares and hPVI.

With that out of the way, let's get on with the Minnesota Senate edition of "Races to watch."

One more quick thing about that PPP poll

In my rush to get the GPI update up last night before heading off to a series of Halloween parties, I overlooked something interesting in the crosstabs. That is, who people that have already voted, voted for. Those numbers are:

Public Policy Polling (10/30, those who have voted, no trend lines):

Mark Dayton (D): 55
Tom Emmer (R): 36
Tom Horner (I): 6

It's not a huge part of the sample, only 9%, but still a good indicator for Mark Dayton.

That is all.

GPI update; PPP 's first MN-Gov poll shows a small Dayton lead

Public Policy Polling (10/30, likely voters, no trend lines):

Mark Dayton (D): 43
Tom Emmer (R): 40
Tom Horner (I): 15
Undecided: 3
(MoE: ±2.2%)

A few things about this poll that should be noted. One, PPP interviewed 2,058 likely voters for a tiny 2.2% margin of error. This is the largest sample any pollster has yet taken of the Minnesota Governor's race and it should make us that much more confident in the results.

New CD8 poll confirms tight race

SurveyUSA (10/28, likely voters, no trend lines):

Rep. Jim Oberstar (D): 47
Chip Cravaack (R): 46
George Burton (CP): 3
Undecided: 4
(MoE: ±3.9%)

We finally get a public poll of congressional district eight and it confirms the internal poll that the Chip Cravaack campaign released a few weeks ago. It's clear that this race is tight and the internals of this poll have to be troubling for Jim Oberstar.

The partisan composition of the poll is 41% Dem, 28% GOP and 28% Indy, Cravaack is keeping it close by winning independents 56-32, which doesn't bode well for Oberstar's chances of winning the remaining undecided vote.

One caveat, of course, is what I talked about earlier today in regards the the SUSA poll of the Governor's race, automated polls this year have skewed in the GOPs direction by an average of two points, according to Nate Silver. Survey USA in particular has skewed right by four points on average.

Regardless of that, Jim Oberstar is in a close race, something he's not used to and he will need to make sure that democratic voters in CD8 turnout for him on election day. And it appears that is exactly what he is doing.

GPI update; SurveyUSA goes cellphone style, GPI stabilizes

SurveyUSA (10/28, likely voters, 10/14 in parentheses):

Mark Dayton (D): 39 (42)
Tom Emmer (R): 38 (37)
Tom Horner (I): 13 (14)
Undecided: 6 (4)
(MoE: ±4%)

This is the first poll in a while thats shown Mark Dayton below 40% and while his numbers have slipped since the last SUSA poll, that could just be float within the margin of error rather than a decline.

Emmer camp disputes MPR poll, releases internal

Public Opinion Stratagies (10/28, likely voters, no trend lines):

Mark Dayton (D): 40
Tom Emmer (R): 40
Tom Horner (I): 13
Undecided: -
(MoE: ±4.38%)

In response to the release of the MPR/Humphrey Institute poll showing Tom Emmer down by 12 points to Mark Dayton, the Emmer campaign released an internal poll by POS conducted on October 24th and 25th that shows the race tied.

I'll let the infamous Cullen Sheehan take it from here:

All polls are snapshots in time. The new MPR/Humphrey Institute results are an unfortunately predictable snapshot in absurdity. The HHH poll's track record rivals only television weather forecasters for accuracy. Four years ago this same poll predicted that Mike Hatch would beat Tim Pawlenty by six percentage points. Minnesota should be as confident in this poll's prediction as Governor Hatch was during the last gubernatorial campaign.

GPI update; Emmer below 30 again

MPR/Humphrey (10/28, likely voters, 9/29 in parentheses):

Mark Dayton (D): 41 (38)
Tom Emmer (R): 29 (27)
Tom Horner (I): 13 (16)
Undecided: 20 (20)
(MoE: ±5.5%)

MPR released it's last poll of the Governor's race this morning and they don't find a whole lot has changed since last time, other than Horner losing a few points to the other two candidates, which other polls had already shown.

If the undecided number seems high, it is, but The Humphrey Institute lumps undecided into the same category as "don't know," "refused," and "voting for someone else." It would be nice to see what the undecided number is all on it's lonesome.

New CD1 poll; Tim Walz at 50%

SurveyUSA (10/27, likely voters, 10/15 in parentheses):

Rep. Tim Walz (D): 50 (47)
Randy Demmer (R): 41 (42)
Steven Wilson (I): 4 (4)
Undecided: 4 (5)
(MoE: ±4.1%)

This could just be float within the margin of error, rather than a Tim Walz surge, but either way there just aren't enough undecided voters left for Randy Demmer to pull off the upset. These are exactly the kinds of seats that Democrats need to win if they want to hang onto control of the house, but the rest of the Midwest might not be so friendly.

Races to watch on election day: MN House edition

This is the first post in a series about what races will be the most interesting to follow on election day. If you are looking for early indications about who's going to have a good night, these are some races you'll want to pay attention to.

A few notes about the metrics I'm using.

When I refer to the amount of money raised by a candidate, I talking about the amount raised in individual contributions this year, not total amount raised. This metric give us an idea of how much support a candidate has in the absence of polling.

This is by no means a perfect measure, but it has decent predictive power in that incumbents who raise significantly more than their opponent rarely lose, and those who raise significantly less, are in danger of losing.

The other metrics I'm using are; 2008 vote shares and hPVI.

With that out of the way, let's get on with the Minnesota House edition of "Races to watch."

The Bellwether County

Nicollet County has voted for the winning candidate in every Minnesota Gubernatorial and Senate race since 1998, it is the only county in Minnesota with such a distinction. Not only has Nicollet County consistently voted for the winning candidate, they have very closely predicted the final margin.

GPI update; another day, another poll

St. Cloud St. U (10/25, likely voters, no trend lines):

Mark Dayton (D): 40
Tom Emmer (R): 30
Tom Horner (I): 19
Undecided: 5
(MoE: ±5%)

While the initial reaction to this poll might be to think that Tom Horner is back in the thick of it, there are reasons to be skeptical.

GPI update; the Horner slide confirmed

StarTribune (PSRI) (10/24, likely voters, 9/26 in parentheses):

Mark Dayton (D): 41 (39)
Tom Emmer (R): 34 (30)
Tom Horner (I): 13 (18)
Undecided: 12 (12)
(MoE: ±3.9%)

This is now the third pollster to show Tom Horner sliding from his high-water mark of 18% down into the low teens, so it's clear that he has lost support, the question now becomes weather he can hold onto what he's got left or if the slide continues.

GPI update; Horner's slide continues

Rasmussen (10/22, likely voters, 10/6 in parentheses):

Mark Dayton (D): 44 (40)
Tom Emmer (R): 41 (38)
Tom Horner (I): 10 (15)
Undecided: 4 (5)
(MoE: ±4%)

This is the third poll in a row to show Mark Dayton with a 2-4 point lead over Tom Emmer and Tom Horner losing support since the last poll by the same pollster, although by a much more significant margin than we've previously seen. Despite what I wrote yesterday, there is now reason to believe that Tom Horner's support is in fact eroding, similar to what happened to Tim Penny in 2002, although I would certainly like to see another poll showing him this low before jumping to any conclusions.

The Horner Effect, Part 3

As the Independence Party candidate in the Minnesota Governor's race, Tom Horner faces an uphill battle to get elected. Because of this the question that everyone ends up asking is; who will he take more votes from, Mark Dayton or Tom Emmer? History suggests that the success of Independence party candidates in Minnesota comes more at the expense of Democrats than Republicans, but the dynamics this year are different. Tom Horner is himself a former Republican and the GOP candidate, Tom Emmer, hails from the fringes of Republican extremism. Given those factors, the conventional wisdom has become that if Tom Horner hurts anyone it was going to be Tom Emmer.

This is the final chapter of a three part series on what effect we can expect Tom Horner to have on the Minnesota Gubernatorial election. In this installment I'm going to look at the polling and who it shows Tom Horner is having more of an adverse effect on. Part one of the series was a look at past Minnesota elections and part two was a look at how the 2010 election is different from those past Minnesota elections.

With that then, here is Part 3...

The Hutchinson Effect

This is a footnote of sorts to The Horner Effect series, part three of which will be done soon.

A few people have questioned why I left the 2006 Governor's race out of The Horner Effect series. I suppose I should have more explicitly addressed why it was left out, so I'll do that now and while I'm at it I'll go ahead and dispell some zombie myths about the 2006 election, many of which are conveniently contained in a diary on Swing State Project:

If recent Minnesota gubernatorial elections are any indication, the great equalizer will be the late October televised debates. Polls moved in double digits in both directions in a matter of a week based on Minnesota gubernatorial debates. If you impress there, you're golden. If you fail to impress, you're ruined. And that's true almost wherever your poll numbers may currently be. The Independence Party's articulate 2006 candidate Peter Hutchinson was not in a position to win, but he nonetheless impressed in the debates and managed to surge at Mike Hatch's expense, handing victory to Pawlenty.

This is simply not true. There is no evidence that Peter Hutchinson cost Mike Hatch the election, despite popular belief.

A Tale of Two Internals

More than two weeks ago Chip Cravaack's campaign released an internal poll showing him 3 points behind Jim Oberstar, 45-42. This put not only the CD8 race on Republicans radar, but next door in CD7 they assumed Colin Peterson must be vulnerable too. In response to the increasing chatter about weather he was in a tight race or not Peterson's campaign released an internal poll of their own showing him wiping the floor with Lee Byberg 54-20.

Not only can we learn something from these two polls, but how the series of events unfolded is also of educational value.

GPI update; SurveyUSA is back in the field

SurveyUSA (10/14, likely voters, 9/15 in parentheses):

Mark Dayton (D): 42 (38)
Tom Emmer (R): 37 (36)
Tom Horner (I): 14 (18)
Undecided: 4 (4)
(MoE: ±3.7%)

This is confirmation of where the current average has the race, although there are a few things about the poll itself worth pointing out.

Jamie Kilstein @ Acme Comedy Club

I saw Jamie at Acme last night for Insiders Night, and he was hilarious. When a comedian comes on the stage wearing a Democracy Now t-shirt you know you're in for an interesting show, here's a taste.

The Horner Effect, Part 2

While history suggests that the Independence Party candidate in Minnesota tends to have success at the expense of the DFL candidate, there is reason think this year might be different. Part of that has to do with Tom Horner and part of that has to do with other factors, like the relative positions of the candidates on the liberal/conservative spectrum.

This is the second part of a three part series on what effect we can expect Tom Horner to have on the Minnesota Gubernatorial election. In this installment I'm going to look at how the 2010 election is different from past Minnesota elections. Part one of the series was a look at those past Minnesota elections and part three will take a look at what the polling shows is actually happening.

With that then, here is Part 2...

The Horner Effect, Part 1

While Minnesota has a rich history of third party successes, the recent era began in 1998 with the election of Jesse Ventura as Governor. Since then there have been two additional statewide elections in which the Independence Party candidate received a significant share of the vote, Tim Penny in the 2002 Governors race and Dean Barkley in the 2008 Senate race. This year certainly looks like it will be another as Tom Horner is over 16% in the current GPI.

This is the first part of a three part series on what effect we can expect Tom Horner to have on the Minnesota Gubernatorial election. In this installment I'm going to look at past statewide elections and the effect the Independence Party candidate had. Part two will attempt to show why 2010 is different than these past elections and part three will take a look at what the current polling shows is happening.

With that then, here is Part 1...

GPI update; Ras now says no to leaners

Rasmussen (10/6, likely voters, 9/22 in parentheses):

Mark Dayton (D): 40 (34)
Tom Emmer (R): 38 (36)
Tom Horner (I): 15 (18)
Undecided: 5 (2)
(MoE: ±4%)

A few things change with this update of the GPI, the first of which is something truly radical, standardizing the way I format new poll results. I put a lot of thought into what the most effective way to do it would be and after careful deliberation I decided to crib Swing State Project's poll formatting style, so if it looks familiar you know who to blame.

Who's polling The Minnesota Governors race

Only four pollsters; Rasmussen, SurveyUSA, Princeton Survey Research Associates (PSRA) and Humphrey Institute, have polled the Minnesota Governors race this year and with under a month left before the election it's unlikely that many more will jump in. In 2006 these same four pollsters (StarTribune had in-house polling in 2006, now they contract with PSRA) were joined by Mason-Dixon, St. Cloud St. and Polimetrix, so it's possible that one of them or someone else entirely will drop a poll on us but for now we're just going to look at who's been polling it so far.

A few notes on terms and formatting first.

PIE is Pollster Induced Error, a metric developed by Nate Silver, it's a measure of how much error, above average, a pollster contributes based on an analysis of past polls.

Past election results are listed as follows:
Race Polled: Last polling result (Actual results) Margin Difference
The margin difference is the polling margin minus the actual margin.

The Pollsters Dilema

--or--

What's up with SurveyUSA's 18-34 polling and other observations

This post is the result of a back and forth I had with Aaron Klemz at The Cucking Stool in the comments of his post about the age gap in the most recent SurveyUSA poll of the Minnesota Governor's race. This was my initial comment:

This has been a trend for SurveyUSA all year and not just in Minnesota. I find these numbers hard to believe and suspect they have more to do with a flaw SurveyUSA's methodology when it comes to young voters. Perhaps it's an issue with cell phones perhaps it's the fact that they are an automated pollster, who knows.

The more I've thought about this the more I think it's an issue deserving of discussion outside of a comment thread.