Here Are The Results of SurveyUSA Election Poll #10404

Geography Surveyed: MN 2nd Congressional District
Data Collected: 10/13/2006 - 10/15/2006
Release Date: 10/16/2006 12:35 PM ET
Sponsor: KSTP-TV Minneapolis

Rowley Gains Ground On Kline, MN 2 Seat No Longer 'Safe' For Republicans: In an election in Minnesota's 2nd Congressional District today, 10/16/06, Republican incumbent John Kline edges DFL challenger Coleen Rowley, 50% to 42%, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted exclusively for KSTP-TV Minneapolis. Since an identical SurveyUSA KSTP-TV poll released 9/27/06, Kline has lost 5 points and Rowley has gained 7 points. Kline had led by 20 points, now leads by 8. Kline gets 91% of Republican votes. Rowley gets 81% of Democrat votes. Independents are evenly split. Kline leads by 14 points among men and by 3 points among women. The movement in this contest appears related to a shift in party identification; see the supplemental analysis below. Kline was first elected to Congress in 2002. The election is in 22 days, on 11/7/06.

Analysis Common To All SurveyUSA Congressional Polls Released 10/16/06: Today, 10/16/06, SurveyUSA releases election polls in 4 Congressional Districts: Arizona 5, California 50, Minnesota 2, and New Mexico 1. In all four of these districts, we observe significant movement away from the Republican incumbent and towards the Democratic challenger, with the Republican's lead decreasing by between 9 and 13 points. Furthermore, all four districts show a shift in the party distribution of likely voters, with the Republican-Democrat difference changing towards Democrats by between 4 and 11 points. Two possible explanations for this shift are: 1) Republicans are becoming less likely to vote, and Democrats are becoming more likely to vote; 2) Some "weak Republicans" are now identifying themselves as Independent, while some left-leaning Independents are now identifying themselves as Democrats. It is unclear at this time which of these explanations is more significant, or how persistent the shift will be. But the consistency of the pattern suggests that the movement in these 4 contests may be driven by a nationwide trend affecting all House races, rather than by factors specific to the individual districts.

Filtering: 900 adults from Minnesota's 2nd Congressional district were interviewed 10/13/06 - 10/15/06. Of them, 804 were registered to vote. Of them, 519 were judged to be "likely" voters. Crosstabs reflect Likely Voters.