Breaking Poll: Kennedy Leads Wetterling 52/34

[Dickie Flatt]

Local news station KSTP released a poll this evening showing incumbant Republican Mark Kennedy with a significant lead.

Kennedy: 52%
Wetterling: 34%
Undecided: 14%

Results By Party:
DFL - 72% Wetterling, 14% Kennedy, 14% Undecided
GOP - 83% Kennedy, 9% Undecided, 8% Wetterling
IND - 46% Kennedy, 33% Wetterling, 21% Undecided

Results By Gender:
Men - 53% Kennedy, 32% Wetterling, 15% Undecided
Women - 51% Kennedy, 36% Wetterling, 13% Undecided


351 likely voters were polled by Gonzalez/Boyd Political Consulting between 10/18 and 10/21. The poll had a margin of error of 5.3%. Party Breakdown:
GOP - 44%
DFL - 33%
IND - 16%

Historical Data
2002 House Race: 57% Kennedy, 35% Roberts
2002 Senate Race: 59% Coleman (R), 38% Mondale

[Cha]

1. Bummer!

I hope those are one of those bogus polls.

[dflprincess]

2. Consider the source

KSTP is awfully conservative (or just plain awful). I can't believe Kennedy would run the risk of going negative against Wetterling if he didn't have numbers that were telling him something different.

[northernsoul]

7. agreed

If Screech were truly safe, he'd be playing it safe by scarcely noting Wtterling's existence and saving his money for a senate run in 2006. If he's had to resort to attacking Minnesota's version of Mother Theresa and spending plenty of money to do it, I guarantee this race is a hell of a lot closer that Stanley Hubbard wants you to think it is.

[jean]

3. I'm not a stat person but the party breakdown here favors the GOP by

11 percentage points. Did they adjust for this in their final numbers or is this just like Gallop?

[Dickie Flatt]

4. It's reasonable

Voting history suggests these numbers are probably reasonable; these people elected Kennedy with nearly 60%, and Coleman with the same.

[MnFats]

5. now that is just fuggin' sad...

...lesson learned: sling shit; it works!
....Kennedy is slime.

[northernsoul]

6. this poll admits to having a margin of error above 5%

not to mention that it probably vastly over-sampled Republicans

Think about it, if Kennedy is so safe, why has he had to resort to running one shameful smear ads against Patty about every 10 seconds on TV?

This poll is pure horse pucky.

[jean]

8. that was my question - does this excerpt indicate Repub oversampling?

351 likely voters were polled by Gonzalez/Boyd Political Consulting between 10/18 and 10/21. The poll had a margin of error of 5.3%.

Party Breakdown:

GOP - 44%
DFL - 33%
IND - 16%


This new thread from today (Monday)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1166395

points out Gallop is , once again, oversampling Repubs - it looks much like this Wetterling/Kennedy poll - except in our MN poll there's an 11% point dominance of Repub likely voters!

[trotsky]

11. One thing to consider

The 6th district IS heavily Repuke, at least according to most recent elections. I think Kennedy won with 60%+ of the vote last time.

That said, I still think this poll is B.S.

[lakeguy]

9. there's no way the gop would be throwin money this way

if kennedy was THAT far ahead IMO. add in sampling error and the source too!

[Dickie Flatt]

10. agree

Internal polling must look much different; if the race was really this far apart there's no way Kennedy would have gone so negative against Wetterling, and there's no way both the DCCC and NRCC would be dumping money into this race. You just don't see national involvement when an incumbant is cruising to re-election; despite this poll it's obvious Kennedy is in trouble.

[jean]

12. I just saw this at Dailykos, regarding Patty

Minnesota 6 (R Incumbent)

Democrat Patty Wetterling is posing a strong challenge to Republican Mark Kennedy, remaining financially competitive and forcing the NRCC to pump money to rescue Kennedy's sorry ass. The DCCC is also vested in this race. ACT's operation in the state may net us this seat.

www.dailykos.com

[DFLforever]

13. Even if this poll were accurate

Look at the big number of undecideds - 14%. That's not good for incumbent Screech, especially combined with Patty's total name recognition.

Also, wasn't this district recently redrawn to give Rethugs control of the district in perpetuity?

It looks like they're using this KSTP poll to do what they commissioned it to do - influence the outcome of the 6th CD election.