Over the years, the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Minnesota Poll has been a reliable indicator of…virtually nothing. Every two years it confidently predicts sweeping victories for the Democrats. Every now and then, as in 2006, that turns out to be right.
Over the years, Scott has repeatedly dissected the Minnesota Poll’s methods and findings and has had notable exchanges with the individual who runs (or ran–I’m not sure whether he has survived the paper’s layoffs) the poll. In 2006 we couldn’t tell whether the poll’s methods improved or whether its biennial prediction was coincidentally right. Today, though, we may get a clue: the Strib’s poll claims that Al Franken has leaped out to a nine-point lead over Norm Coleman in Minnesota’s Senate race. The Strib attributes this to the public’s revulsion at Norm’s “negative” ads about Franken, which consist mostly of footage of Franken being Franken. What about Franken’s defamatory attacks on Coleman? Those are apparently different, somehow.
What makes this remarkable is that just yesterday, a Survey USA poll showed Coleman ahead by ten points, while less than two weeks ago a Quinnipiac/Wall Street Journal survey, which included more respondents than any of the other Minnesota polls, had Coleman ahead by seven.
I’ll leave it to Scott to see if he can figure out how the Strib was able to identify Minnesotans whose views were so congruent with its own.
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