Bachmann leads field of non-contenders

PPP polled Republican Primary voters about their preferences for who should run for the Senate against Amy Klobuchar, not surprisingly Michele Bachmann leads the field, a field with very few possible challengers.

Public Policy Polling (12/10 Republican Primary voters, no trend lines):

Michele Bachmann (R): 36
Tim Pawlenty: 20
Norm Coleman: 14
Chip Craavack: 7
Tom Emmer: 6
John Kline: 5
Laura Brod: 4
Eric Paulson: 2
Some else/not sure: 6
(MoE: ±5%)

Michele Bachmann has all the markings of the national Tea Party candidates we saw in 2010, wildly popular within her own party, but tepid support at best in the general electorate. Bachmann leads the GOP primary field, but performed poorly in the head to head match-ups against Klobuchar.

What's sort of interesting is that if you add up the support for the "moderate" names, Tim Pawlenty, Norm Coleman and Eric Paulson, you get the same 36% that Michele Bachmann is getting.

The thing to keep in mind however is that the eventual candidate almost certainly won't be chosen by the Republican Primary electorate, they will be chosen by GOP delegates who skew more conservative.

In the end, none of these numbers are likley to mean anything, as Tom Jensen explains:

Given how strongly Klobuchar polls this exercise is probably academic- her opponent seems likely to be someone a lot more low profile than either Pawlenty or Bachmann- someone who has nothing to lose by launching a long shot Senate campaign.

Among all the names PPP polled, I can see only one of them actually making a run for the Senate in 2012 and that would be Laura Brod who doesn't hold elective office right now and appears to be positioning herself for a future race.

PPP also polled the GOP Presidential primary.

Public Policy Polling (12/10, GOP primary voters, 10/30 in parenthesis):

Tim Pawlenty: 24 (19)
Sarah Palin: 17 (18)
Mike Huckabee: 15 (14)
Mitt Romney: 13 (11)
Newt Gingrich: 11 (11)
Ron Paul: 9 (-)
Mitch Daniels: 2 (3)
John Thune: 3 (2)
Someone else/Undecided: 6 (18)
(MoE: ±5%)

Not a lot of movement here, they added Ron Paul's name and took out Mike Pence which decreased the undecided vote. The movement in the other candidates numbers, where there is movement, is likely just float within the margin of error.