The Enthusiasm Gap is back

It's back! The dreaded juggernaut that toppled Democratic legislative majorities all over the country in 2010, the Enthusiasm Gap, has again reared it's head, huffing and snorting for more politicians blood.

Only this time, the Enthusiasm Gap appears to have switched sides and will now be trampling over GOPers.

PPP (3/26):

"Are you very excited, somewhat excited, or not at all excited about voting in the 2012 elections?"

Democrats
Very excited 57
Somewhat excited 28
Not at all excited 15

Republicans
Very excited 46
Somewhat excited 30
Not at all excited 24
(MoE: ±3.1%)

57% very excited Democrats and 46% very excited Republicans is a gap of 11 points. On March 28th 2011, almost exactly one year before this poll was taken, the Democrats numbers were about the same, 55% very excited. The big difference is that last year 56% of Republicans were very excited as well.

This graph helps to illustrate my point:

Unpacking the Odds and Ends

Last week PPP released the last set of data from their recent foray into Minnesota. The "Odds and Ends" release, as PPP refers to it, contains a lot of interesting data that is worth unpacking. So that's what I'm going to do. Right now in fact.

PPP (1/27, 6/1 in parenthesis):

"Do you approve or disapprove of Governor Mark Dayton’s job performance?"

Approve 53 (51)
Disapprove 34 (38)
Not sure 13 (10)
(MoE: ±2.8%)

Mark Dayton is proving himself to be a capable and likable Governor and these numbers reflect that. PPP's write up of the poll sums it up nicely:

Mark Dayton's numbers have improved since PPP last polled Minnesota in May and he's one of the most popular Governors in the country. 53% of voters approve of the job he's doing to 34% who disapprove. That +19 spread is up 6 points from May when he was at +13 (51/38). Dayton has near unanimous approval from Democrats (85/5), is very strong with independents (51/33), and even has a decent amount of support from Republicans (19%). Dayton's 53% approval ties him for the 8th highest out of more than 40 sitting Governors PPP has polled on.

It's been since Arne Carlson that a candidate for Governor in Minnesota received more than 50% of the vote in an election. Of course we'll have to see what happens with the stadium and how that moves the needle.

Speaking of the stadium, PPP asked about that as well:

A-Klo still crushing

Posts about Amy Klobuchar polls are not really that fun to write. Every one is exactly the same, Amy is at around 55% and when you're at 55% it doesn't really matter what your challengers are doing.

And hey, look at that, this poll shows her at 55%. Against everyone. Again. For the third time. Call me shocked.

For the sake of completeness though, here it is:

PPP (1/23, 6/2 in parenthesis, 12/7 in brackets):

Amy Klobuchar (D-inc) 54 (54) [53]
Tim Pawlenty (R) 39 (41) [43]
Undecided 7 (5) [4]

Amy Klobuchar (D-inc) 58 (57) [56]
Michele Bachmann (R) 35 (37) [39]
Undecided 7 (5) [4]

Amy Klobuchar (D-inc) 55 (56)
Dan Severson (R) 32 (28)
Undecided 13 (16)

Amy Klobuchar (D-inc) 55
Joe Arwood (R) 30
Undecided 15

Amy Klobuchar (D-inc) 55
Anthony Hernandez (R) 29
Undecided 16
(MoE: ±2.9%)

You can see that their respective presidential runs haven't really helped the two Minnesota Republican heavyweights, Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann. The trend lines only show incremental change though, not significant erosion. That's due to both of them already being at or close to the "Kennedy line."

(Ed: The term "Kennedy Line" refers to the share of the vote that Mark Kennedy got in the 2006 Senate race, the Kennedy line is essentially the GOP's floor)

There's nothing about any poll of this race that's been done over that last year plus that has shown any real deviation from these numbers. And there's no silver lining for any of the GOP candidates when you delve into the crosstabs, 59% of Independents approve of Amy Klobuchar and even 32% of Republicans do.

She has what you call "Cross-over appeal," and she's worked very hard to cultivate that appeal. And these are the dividends that pays.

Iowa's about to get frothy!

Rick Santorum will win the Iowa Caucuses on Tuesday.

But Tony, no poll has yet shown Santorum in the lead in Iowa and guru of election predictions Nate Silver, currently has him pegged at just a 21% chance to win, behind both Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, why would you be predicting a Santorum win?

Observe...

Momentum: Rick Santorum is the only candidate with any right now. The table below is the difference in support between the two most recent PPP polls of Iowa; the most recent being released yesterday and the previous one being released on the 27th of December, only five days earlier.

Santorum	8
Gingrich	1
Perry	0
Romney	-1
Bachmann	-3
Paul	-4

It's usually a mistake to read too much into momentum. Because Santorum is surging now, doesn't mean he will be surging on Tuesday. But there are solid fundamentals on which to rest this particular surge theory, the next bolded word for instance.

MN-8: Clark leads DFLers in fundraising

The three DFL candidates (minus Daniel Fanning) running for Chip Cravaack's eighth district seat have released their fundraising numbers for the third quarter and more so than endorsements and straw polls, the money raised by these candidates will have a tangible effect on the race.

8th District fundraising; DFLers through 9/30/11

Name	Net raised	Net spent	Cash-on-hand
Tarryl Clark	$375,143	$166,702	$235,545
Rick Nolan	$65,649	$33,617	$32,032
Jeff Anderson	$51,020	$30,409	$20,611

Tarryl Clark is proving that her fundraising chops were not solely the product of being Michele Bachmann's opponent, she raised more than three times as much money as her two DFL rivals combined, Rick Nolan and Jeff Anderson, who need to do much better at bringing in the cash if they are going to seriously challenge Cravaack in November.

Based on the endorsement arms race that is currently unfolding between Nolan and Anderson the DFL party endorsement for the eighth district seems like it is out of Tarryl Clark's reach. And since Nolan and Anderson are in the process of seeking the endorsement, they might feel like they don't need to be fundraising in earnest quite yet.

This is the advantage that Tarryl Clark has over her opponents. Having just run for congress in 2010, she is well aware of the fundraising required to mount a congressional campaign and clearly has no qualms about asking for money.

Jeff Anderson has only run for the city council, and when Rick Nolan last ran for congress things were quite a bit different; a candidate didn't need to spend every waking hour on the phone asking people for money, these days they do.

So while it seems unlikely that Tarryl Clark is going to win the DFL endorsement in the eighth district, she is building a warchest for the inevitable primary fight that will ensue after the endorsement is handed out. And if she keeps fundraising at this rate, she will be a tough primary opponent.

Some dude to challenge Keith Ellison

Because he represents what is easily the safest house district in the entire state Keith Ellison isn't going to attract any top tier Republican challengers. Instead he faces a series of some dudes and wackos who have little hope of winning.

Chris Fields, who announced his campaign last Wednesday, appears to fall into the some dude column. Even if he isn't stark raving mad though, he's still capable of regurgitating the standard GOP talking points, from his website:

Congressman Keith Ellison supports and represents economic policies that have hurt the people of our district and country. We have watched each day as factories close and our jobs are being exported overseas. We are told we aren’t competitive and the price of labor is too high. Policies he has defended have made it more attractive for our businesses to invest elsewhere.

When he says the price of labor is too high, what Chris Fields means is that those of us in the fifth district make too much damn money. If only we would accept lower wages, businesses would want to invest here!

Welcome to the race Chris, your challenge is to get more than 25% of the vote, something no one else has been able to do against Keith Ellison in the 5th district. I'd say good luck, but I wouldn't really mean it so what's the point.

Laurie Halverson to challenge Doug Wardlow in 38B

On Monday Laurie Halverson filed paperwork declaring her intention to run for the state house seat currently held by everyone's favorite dyed-in-the-wool tea-partier, Doug Wardlow.

For those of you unfamiliar with Rep. Wardlow, he is one of the many freshman swept into office in the great GOP wave of 2010, defeating Mike Obermulluer 52-48, to reclaim his father's former seat. Back in June of this year, during the limbo period after the legislative session ended and the shutdown began, Alec attended a forum that Wardlow was on and got to see him in action firsthand.

This was Wardlow's position on negotiating for those who don't remember:

When negotiating, you cannot compromise your principles with your opponent, because if you compromise they won't negotiate with you because you don't have a principled base to compromise from.

When I updated the Senate hPVI numbers earlier this year I noted that Senate district 38 was the one that had moved the most in the Democratic direction, going from R+6 to R+2. Assuming it doesn't change too much in redistricting, something we really can't be sure of, it should be a very winnable race.

That's why it's nice to see a strong DFL candidate get into the race, from the Eagan Patch:

Halverson since 2006 has served on the Eagan Advisory Parks and Recreation Commission, and has been an active leader for the Eagan Foundation, according to a news release. She graduated from the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul with a degree in political science, and has a Master of Public Affairs from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, the release states.

Doug Wardlow is one of the more vulnerable of the GOP freshman class and having a credible challenger running against him makes it that much better of an investment of time and money for anyone looking for races to help with next year.

Keith Ellison to be challenged again by racist

Lynne Torgerson has an announcement:

I, Lynne Torgerson, am running for Congress in Minnesota, against radical Islamist Keith Ellison. Keith Ellison fails to oppose banning Islamic Sharia law in the United States. He accuses people of trying to ban it as ‘conspiratorilists.’ Keith Ellison also fails to support that the United States Constitution should be supreme over Islamic Sharia law.

Sharia is taking over America, but Lynne Torgerson will stop it by losing to Keith Ellison by 70 points. Or something.

But that's not all:

Considering herself a "stateswoman" rather than a "politician," Torgerson’s platform has chiefly been comprised of her suspicion of Islam.

She considers herself a stateswoman though, so there's that. There's also this:

Torgerson insists that she is "very tolerant," blaming Muslims for failing "to become tolerant of us." Yet, when the Independent Party explained to her "that a winning campaign would need to incorporate a platform of equality and inclusion," she reportedly replied, to the effect, "Well I don’t support those ideas."

Oh she's a stateswoman alright, if the state you're talking about is the Tea Party Nation.

Here's a link to contribute to Keith.

A-Klo crushes

No real analysis needed here, simply put, unless Amy Klobuchar gets caught sending a tweet of little Amy to a high school kid, she's a virtual lock for re-election.

PPP (6/2, 12/7 in parenthesis):

Amy Klobuchar (D-inc) 54 (53)
Tim Pawlenty (R) 41 (43)
Undecided 5 (4)

Amy Klobuchar (D-inc) 57 (56)
Michele Bachmann (R) 37 (39)
Undecided 5 (4)

Amy Klobuchar (D-inc) 57
Chris Barden (R) 30
Undecided 13

Amy Klobuchar (D-inc) 56
Dan Severson (R) 28
Undecided 16

Amy Klobuchar (D-inc) 55
Dave Thompson (R) 28
Undecided 17
(MoE: ±2.9%)

Random Story Roundup

It's Friday, you know what that means don't you? Partying, partying and fun, fun, fun.

I couldn't resist that one on April fools day.

Now that you're in the proper frame of mind, on to the random goodness!

• Politico reported earlier in the week that former Senator Norm Coleman wasn't too bullish on the GOPs chances of taking Amy Klobuchar's Senate seat.
  
  

  I think it could be a tough year. She’s certainly strong. She’s got good numbers and good support. She hasn’t been a very polarizing force. Clearly, that's going to be a challenge.

  
  Did I say "wasn't too bullish?" From an insider like Coleman the above quote is about as close as you're likely to get to "we don't have a snowballs chance in hell."
  
  
• In November Nancy Reagan announced that the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, along with NBC and Politico, would host the first of the Republican Presidential nomination debates.
  
  Since than no one has actually announced they are running, at least no one anyone is taking seriously, leaving debate organizers in a dilemma, either they let the Bachmann's and Cain's of the GOP have the stage to themselves or they postpone the event until some actual candidates emerge.
  
  Not surprisingly they decided to postpone.
  
  

The curious case of Tim Pawlenty

Tim Pawlenty finds himself in an interesting place right now, a place where few have managed to emerge victorious. The pundacricy loves him, but the voters don't know who he is, and the one's who do know who he is don't really like him that much.

For instance, Larry Sabato, the political Svengali at the University of Virginia, tells us:

Pawlenty has a strong team. It is well respected and in some respects envied by the other candidates. It's really one of his hidden advantages. He's not a front-runner. He's relatively unknown. But because of his team he's well positioned. He could easily become one of the finalists for the Republican nomination.

The linked article mentions many of the members of his team, some coming from Bush's political team but others coming from Mitt Romney's failed campaign. One problem, if he has such a great team, how do you explain this?

MNGOP decides they won't run against Amy

Seeing how well she polls Republicans have decided that they would rather run against Al Franken.



I guess we'll see how far they get with this strategy, but it's certainly a concession of the obvious, Amy Klobuchar is extremely popular and will be very difficult to beat. Given those conditions I can see why they'd rather not run against her.

And while they managed to get the wording updated on the front page to "destroying", they didn't actually get to the whole site yet.



If, like me, you were surprised to see that Amy voted for a bill that never actually got to the floor of the Senate it's because she didn't. This is what they are referring to:

The Environment and Public Works Committee voted 10-1 -- with seven Republican members skipping the vote -- to approve the climate change legislation drafted by Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

At least we know how they're planning to attack Amy, by attacking someone else.

Here's the address of the web site they put up, if you're curious: http://www.amyfacts.com

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%)

First poll of 2012 Senate race; Nothing to see here

PPP polled the 2012 Minnesota Senate race and found Amy Klobuchar leading the five GOPers they tested her against and garnering over 50% of the vote against them all. Long story short, Amy Klobuchar will be very difficult to beat in 2012.

Here's the breakdown of the match-ups.

PPP (12/7, no trend lines):

Amy Klobuchar (D): 56
Michele Bachmann (R): 39
Undecided: 4

Amy Klobuchar (D): 54
Norm Coleman (R): 40
Undecided: 6

Amy Klobuchar (D): 56
Tom Emmer (R): 38
Undecided: 6

Amy Klobuchar (D): 53
Tim Pawlenty (R): 43
Undecided: 4

Amy Klobuchar (D): 52
Eric Paulson (R): 34
Undecided: 14
(MoE: ±3.2%)

The T-Pawmentum builds

While PPP was in the field polling the Governor's race they were also asking about Presidential preference in 2012, here are the results for Minnesota.

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

Tim Pawlenty: 19
Sarah Palin: 18
Mike Huckabee: 14
Mitt Romney: 11
Newt Gingrich: 11
Mitch Daniels: 3
Mike Pence: 3
John Thune: 2
Someone else/Undecided: 18
(MoE: ±4.4%)