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.

Redistricting Maps! Round Five - The Parties' Proposals, Outstate edition

Friday of last week was the deadline for parties in Minnesota's redistricting lawsuit to submit their maps. Three groups submitted maps; the Britton, Hippert (GOP) and Martin (DFL) intervenors. On Monday I went over the partisan composition of the three maps and yesterday I went over the five metro area districts. Today I'm going to discuss the way the three outstate districts were drawn.

Before I get into the maps I'll once again recap the partisan numbers with this nifty color coded excel table.



This is a table of the differences in the average Democratic vote %, color coded so that the districts that get the most Republican are redder and the ones that get the most Democratic are bluer.

With that, on to the last of the maps!

Redistricting Maps! Round Five - The Parties' Proposals, Metro edition

Yesterday I posted the partisan numbers of the proposed districts, today I'm going to look at the districts themselves, starting today in the metro and going outstate tomorrow.

Before I get into that I just wanted to recap the numbers from yesterday in the form of a color coded excel table!



This is a table of the differences in the average Democratic vote %, color coded so that the districts that get the most Republican are redder and the ones that get the most Democratic are bluer.

With that, on to the maps!

Redistricting: Partisan numbers for proposed maps

I tried to resist the urge to break this up into multiple posts and instead just do one big post comparing all the proposals. That post quickly grew to unmanageable proportions though, so I'm going to go ahead and break it up anyway.

So, today I'm going to go over the partisan numbers of the proposed districts and tomorrow I'll start breaking down the districts themselves.

The three proposals are from the Britton, Hippert (GOP) and Martin (DFL) intervenors. The Hippert map is old news, as it is the same map that passed through the GOP controlled legislature earlier this year and was vetoed by Governor Dayton. The two other maps are interesting in their similarities and their differences; drawing rural Minnesota almost exactly the same but taking completely different approaches in the metro area.

Cutting to the chase though; here are the Obama percentages for the three maps:

Obama % for proposed maps

CD	Britton	Hippert	Martin	Old
1	52%	51%	52%	51%
2	45%	49%	45%	48%
3	50%	50%	55%	52%
4	64%	64%	62%	64%
5	72%	74%	73%	74%
6	48%	45%	43%	45%
7	47%	45%	48%	47%
8	53%	56%	54%	53%

Yet another poll on the anti-family amendment

Around this time each year St. Cloud State University does a statewide poll and this years version featured a question about the anti-family amendment.

SCSU (11/12, no trend lines):

"Should the Minnesota Constitution be amended to provide that only a union of one man and one
woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota?"

Yes 44
No 47
Don't know/refused 9
(MoE: ±5%)

This result runs contrary to the two polls from last week, by the Star Tribune (PSRA) and KSTP (SurveyUSA), who both found outside the margin of error leads for the amendment. And other than a PPP poll at the end of May that showed the amendment losing by a single point this is the only poll with the "one man, one woman" language to show the amendment losing outright.

If we simply average the three latest polls we get this; 43% do not support the amendment and 46% do. This leaves 10-11% in the undecided/don't know category. It's that 10% who will decide the fate of the amendment.

A-Klo cruising

In addition to testing the anti-family amendment and the Vikings stadium SurveyUSA also tested the 2012 Senate race and to absolutely no one's surprise Amy Klobuchar has wide leads over her announced opposition, Dan/Doc Severson and first term city councilman Joe Arwood.

SurveyUSA (11/8, no trendlines):

Amy Klobuchar (D-inc) 49
Tim Pawlenty (R) 37
Undecided 14

Amy Klobuchar (D-inc) 50
Norm Coleman (R) 37
Undecided 14

Amy Klobuchar (D-inc) 55
Dan Severson (R) 23
Undecided 22

Amy Klobuchar (D-inc) 56
Joe Arwood (R) 22
Undecided 22
(MoE: ±4.3%)

I might as well just write up a template for all these A-Klo poll posts, because they've all been the same so far. Amy Klobuchar is polling well over 50% against her announced opponents and is polling at 50% against the MN GOP's A-team, who can't even crack 40% against her.

You can see why she does so well by looking at the cross-tabs, she loses at most 7% of Democrats, while taking 17% of Republicans against the known names and 28% against the unknowns. And there is simply nothing in any of these numbers that indicate any vulnerability for the GOP to exploit.

The only real question I have about this race is weather A-Klo can actually do better than the 58% she got in 2006.

Another poll shows the anti-family amendment winning

On Tuesday I posted about the Minnesota Poll and it's findings vis-a-vie the anti-family amendment, which were discouraging to say the least. Right on the heels of that comes a SurveyUSA poll showing basically the same result, Minnesota voters favoring the amendment by a handful of points.

SurveyUSA (11/8, 5/25 in parenthesis, 3/31 in brackets):

"If an amendment to the Minnesota Constitution were on the ballot, that defines marriage as between one man and one woman, would you vote..."

For	46	(51)	[62]
Against	40	(40)	[33]
Not vote	10	(8)
Not sure	4	(2)	[5]

(MoE: ±4.3%)

This somewhat mirror's the Strib's 48-43 result in favor of the amendment. The big difference though is that SurveyUSA gave people the "not vote" option, of which 10% availed themselves.

If people actually voted this way next November the amendment would fail. This is because for an amendment to the Minnesota constitution to pass it needs to receive 50% + 1 of the entire electorate. Meaning not voting on the measure is as good as voting no.

The other thing you can see is that actual support for the amendment has eroded quite a bit since SurveyUSA's first poll of the issue at the end of March, going from 62% support, to 51% to 46% now. Opposition to the amendment hasn't risen at the same level as support has fallen, meaning that many people who at first supported the amendment have moved into the "Not vote" and "Not sure" categories.

Like in the Minnesota poll though, there are a substantial number of Democrats, 26% in this case, who are in favor of the amendment while only 58% are opposed. This will simply not do if we want to beat this thing.

Minnesota Poll: the anti-family amendment makes big gains

There's no way to really sugar coat this one, since last time PSRA was in the field in Minnesota opposition to the anti-family amendment has softened by twelve points and support has increased by nine.

StarTribune (PSRA) (11/8, 5/13 in parenthesis):

"Would you favor or oppose amending the Minnesota Constitution to allow marriage only between a man and a woman?"

Favor 48 (39)
Oppose 43 (55)
Don't know/refused 8 (7)
(MoE: ±4.4%)

It's hard to say exactly what happened since May that would result in opposition going from plus sixteen points to minus five, but this certainly helps to illustrate the uncertainties of polling ballot questions, especially this particular ballot question.

[Note: I missed it at first, but the question wording is different from the May poll to this one and that is almost certainly what is driving the results.]

Looking at the cross-tabs the changes come from some expected and some unexpected places. Back in May the 65+ cohort actually opposed the amendment, 51-44, now that same group is in favor of the amendment 70-26. This is a preposterously large swing and may be the root of the dramatic topline swing.

Redistricting: Special panel releases redistricting principals

In an order filed on Friday the Special Redistricting Panel released it's redistricting principals. These are the criteria the court will use to actually draw the maps we will be using for the next ten years.

In this post I'm going to look at the principals in the court order and how they compare to the principals from the last redistricting cycle and also the principals submitted by the four intervenors.

First, lets take a look at the principals and what they actually mean before looking at how the different parties put them in order.

Redistricting Maps! Round Four - Draw the Line Minnesota

On Friday, the Citizens’ Redistricting Commission, a group brought together by Draw the Line Minnesota, submitted it's maps to the Special Redistricting Panel. Here's a statement for the group's chair, Candi Walz:

We’re taking advantage of this opportunity to share what we heard with the judicial panel and to ensure Minnesotans who attended our meetings have their voice heard. We heard from hundreds of Minnesotans that want our state’s Congressional and legislative districts drawn to reflect the lives and needs of our citizens and communities, rather partisan interests of any kind, and that’s what this report aims to communicate.

In response to this, Rep. Sarah Anderson, had a comment of her own:

As best we can tell Draw the Line has ripped apart at least three tribal communities and is carving up almost four times the number of cities they are reporting. Draw the Line’s top principle was to preserve communities of interest, yet they completely disregard city and county boundaries, ignored the Voting Rights Act altogether and disenfranchise thousands of Minnesotans of their equal representation rights.

As we all know, Rep. Anderson has a knack for first-class hyperbole, but this is quite the statement, even for her. First of all, I don't really see how any plan that creates districts of equal population (as this one does) could "disenfranchise thousands of Minnesotans of their equal representation rights," but perhaps Rep. Anderson is using some sort of quantum theory of redistricting where things behave in ways that no one quite understands.

But this is not what really makes Rep. Anderson upset:

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.

Redistricting: Odds and Ends

These are a few redistricting related stories that don't quite fit into their own posts. I used to do this sort of thing as "This Week in Redistricting" but now I don't. What is the significance of this change? We'll likely never know, but we must move forward under the new regime, "Odds and Ends" it is!

Onward.

First we have the Special Redistricting Panel releasing it's schedule for oral arguments, which is as follows:

Scheduling Order #2

Oct 19, 2011	Responses to motions to adopt proposed redistricting criteria
Oct 26, 2011	Oral argument on redistricting criteria and unresolved issues
Nov 18, 2011	Motions to adopt redistricting plans and supporting memoranda
Dec 9, 2011	Responses to motions to adopt redistricting plans and supporting memoranda
Jan 4, 2011	Oral argument on redistricting plans

Redistricting: The Post-Citizens United landscape

All the way back in June MPR reported that:

Three attorneys for Briggs and Morgan have filed as "attorneys of record" for eight citizens in a redistricting case. The attorneys; former MN Supreme Court Justice Eric Magnuson, Elizabeth Brama and Michael Wilhelm, all filed the paperwork this morning to say that they would represent the eight Republican citizens who have filed lawsuits both in federal and state courts.

The Republican Party of Minnesota is working with an independent group, "Minnesotans for a Fair Redistricting," on redistricting efforts.

And now comes this ProPublica article:

Minnesotans for a Fair Redistricting describes itself as independent, but it has much of its leadership in common with the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota, a group with ties to the political empire of the Koch brothers, industrialists from Kansas who’ve spent millions funding conservative causes. The head of the Freedom Foundation, Annette Meeks, told ProPublica she has “no involvement” with Fair Redistricting. But both organizations’ tax filings list the same address: Meeks’ home address.

Fair Redistricting is registered under the name of her husband, Jack Meeks, who is also on the board of the Freedom Foundation. He did not respond to requests for comment.

Redistricting: Utz Fail!

Tim Utz was last seen losing to DLFer Carolyn Laine by almost 20 points in the biggest Republican wave election in the history of whatever. Yet still featured on the front of his campaign website is this absolute jem of a passage:

Although we lost the election yesterday, the results of the campaign have much to be proud of. As in 2008, our campaign again put a hurt on the DFL stronghold in House District 50-A, breaking open the fortress perception of invincibility.

I don't know how you get from a 19.5 percentage point loss to "breaking open the fortress perception of invincibility," but than again I'm not Tim Utz.

In a sort of "where are they now" fashion we'll catch up with Mr. Utz, who these days can be found tilting at redistricting windmills. I am unsure of what outcome he expects, but his reasoning is pure as Tea!

Congressional Progressive Caucus is tired of being ignored

This is a good sign:

Over the past several months, the Congressional Progressive Caucus has begun formalizing ties to a number of outside groups and organizing internally to bring more pressure to bear on leadership.

“We’ve always been a great group, but in my opinion we’ve not punched above our weight; we’ve punched below,” Rep. Keith Ellison, co-chairman of the CPC, said in an interview last week.

It has seemed at times as though the liberals in the Democratic party were expected to stand in the corner and be quite while the "adults" worked things out. So it's encouraging to see an effort to change this dynamic.

The CPC held its first retreat earlier this year and released a budget proposal in April, which was drafted with the help of the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute. The caucus also recently hired a new executive director, Brad Bauman, whom aides describe as an aggressive and press-savvy strategist. Staff to Members within the caucus also are working together more closely, aides said.