MEMO: One Year Out, Minnesota (Still) Not Ready For Hillary
November 9, 2015
Attn: Interested Parties
RE: One Year Out, Minnesota (Still) Not Ready For Hillary
From: John Rouleau, Minnesota Jobs Coalition Executive Director
A new poll from KSTP/SurveyUSA shows Hillary Clinton would become the first Democrat presidential candidate to lose Minnesota in more than 40 years if the election were held today. The poll further shows that Clinton struggles among independent voters, losing this key subset to potential Republican challengers by double digit margins in several cases.
One year out in a hypothetical head to head-to-head match ups, Clinton trails four Republicans and is in a virtual tie with another. This is the third poll from three different pollsters in Minnesota with findings that show Clinton continues to struggle with self-identified independent voters.
An August poll from the Democrat-leaning Public Policy Polling found Clinton’s image worse yet at -41, 24% favorable, 65% unfavorable. Public Policy Polling included head-to-head match ups and found Clinton struggling to gain traction: her narrow lead was within the margin of error in several hypothetical match ups.
Combined, these polls worried the Clinton campaign enough to send a senior strategist to Minnesota to push back on the findings and for national Democrats to attack SurveyUSA’s reputation.
Rather than attack three reputable pollsters, Minnesota Democrats would be wise to focus their attention to their own flawed recruiting strategy and head back to the drawing board. It’s clear that the DFL’s strategy linking candidates to Clinton will not, in fact, put seats in play as Minnesota DFL chairman Ken Martin hoped. It is no surprise that vulnerable Democrats have attempted to hide their support for Clinton, while they attempt to downplay the similarities they hold on policies with Clinton.
Best,
John
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