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.

Which brings us to point two, there is only 3% undecided in this poll, meaning Tom Emmer would have to win all the undecideds to get to even and that's not likely to happen given Emmer's favorabilty ratings are by far the worst of the three candidates.

None of the three candidates has a net positive favorability rating. Horner comes closest at -1 (35/36), followed by Dayton at -2 (43/45), and Emmer at -14 (37/51).

Negative 14 is positively brutal and doesn't bode well for his chances of picking up the remaining undecided or defecting Horner voters for that matter.

This I think, sums up the whole race:

Minnesota's a Democratic state so if the Democratic candidate wins all the Democrats and the Republican candidate wins all the Republicans and the independents split pretty evenly the Democratic candidate's going to win. That's where the contest stands right now so Emmer will have to make up some ground in the final days if he's going to pull this one out.

What that means is this will come down to who can GOTV better, that's our job until election day.

Here's what I suspect will be the final GPI update, although it's possible Rasmussen drops another poll on us before Tuesday. Tom Emmer ticks up a point, but Dayton maintains the roughly five point lead he's had for the whole month of October.





Notes:

"Rating" is from Nate Silver's pollster ratings. "Age" is the number of days since the median date that the poll was in the field. "Weight" is a combination of pollster rating and age of the poll, with age being the dominate factor.

"Ave" is an average of all polls conducted since the primary. "L3Ave" is an average of the last three polls. "wAve" is a weighted average using the "weight" variable.

The graph is of the wAve in the GPI, not specific polls. The dates used for data points are the date the GPI was published.