Minnesota Madness

Yesterday, we commented on two new polls from respected pollsters Rasmussen and Mason-Dixon in near-perfect harmony showing Al Franken losing his lead against Senator Norm Coleman, and seemingly falling behind with the election days away. For a quick reminder, here are those polls:

Rasmussen (10/28; 10/22 findings in parenthesis)
Norm Coleman 43 (37)
Al Franken 39 (41)
Dean Barkley 14 (17)

Mason-Dixon (10/27-10/28)
Norm Coleman 42
Al Franken 36
Dean Barkley 12

Well, things just got a whole lot messier today, with two more polls showing the exact opposite, and also together in strong agreement that Franken is holding or slightly expanding on a tenuous lead:

Public Policy Polling (10/28-10/30)
Norm Coleman 40
Al Franken 45
Dean Barkley 14

Minnesota Public Radio/Humphrey Institute (10/24-10/28)
Norm Coleman 37 (38)
Al Franken 41 (36)
Dean Barkley 17 (14)

So, whereas the first two show an average of Coleman 42.5, Franken 37.5, Barkley 13, the latter two find it as Franken 43, Coleman 39, Barkley 15.5.

The only thing the four seem to agree on is that Barkley is in the low-teens. What they do not agree on is the strength of the two major-party candidates, and perhaps which one Dean Barkley is hurting more. MPR/HI suggests in its report that he is taking an equal number of Democrats and Republicans, but that this is hurting Coleman more simply because there are less self-identified Republicans in Minnesota this year. It also shows Franken surging up while Coleman and Barkley remain stagnant over the last few weeks.

For its part, MPR/HI finds Franken losing about a quarter of Democrats, while lagging way behind Barack Obama, who the poll finds is winning the state by 56-41. As we and others have surmissed, this is not a big shock, and the key reason why Franken continues to struggle: a lot of people don't like him. What keeps him competitive with many voters is that Coleman's unfavorable number is now very high as well.

Looking at this mish-mash of data, Nate Silver today observes the following on 538:

In Minnesota, polling from PPP and the Humphrey Institute is showing movement toward Al Franken, but polling from Rasmussen and Mason-Dixon showing just the opposite and breaking in Norm Coleman's direction. Such highly volatile polling is sometimes characteristic of races involving third party candidates, and Dean Barkley continues to hold onto about 15 percent of the vote in this race. As I suggested on Tuesday, it is likely that some of that Barkley vote will collapse, and there are some hints that is more likely to break toward Franken, but characterizing this race as anything other than a toss-up would be generous.

My response to all of this? How about a shrug of the shoulders? Polling for this race has been all over the place for a while. My view, for what little it is worth, continues to be that if Obama carries Minnesota by 10+ points, a Coleman win would be very hard to envision. Given Obama's continued strength here, I will stick to it, even though I get the sense that a whole lot of Minnesota Democrats, women, and indies are not in love with the prospect of Senator Al Franken.

Come election night, this might be the Senate race to watch not just because it plays a key role in Democratic plans to get to 60, but also to see which pollster earned his or her fee the best.