Five months ago a SUSA poll showed Al Franken losing to Norm Coleman by 22 points and a few people here saw that as a sign that Al could not win. I argued that it was WAY too early to make those sorts of claims and that the race would certainly tighten. That far from the election Al would only have to close the gap by a little more than a point a month to catch up by the election. Well, there is a new SUSA poll out now...
Al has closed the gap dramatically (as have the other two Dem Candidates):
Coleman tops Al Franken (D), 49% to 42%., beats Mike Ciresi (D), 48% to 42%, and is ahead of Jim Cohen (D), 49% to 37%.
Both Al and Mike have moved from 22-23 points down to 6-7 points down in just 5 months. Both are having no problems raising plenty of money and Al is raising signifigantly more than Coleman.
The best news seems to be that the fight for the Democratic primary between these three excellent candidates is doing a great job of highlighting for the people of Minnesota what a terrible Senator Coleman is. Check out Coleman's approval/disapproval numbers from http://www.surveyusa.com/... :
Wow. Frankly at this point, Al has a small advantage over Ciresi becasue of his greater money raising power, but either could end up with the Democratic nod... Cohen is more of a long shot, but not as much of a long shot as Coleman. With approval numbers like that and two strong candidates just 6 points behind him 15 months till the election, Coleman had better start looking for a spot on K-street now.
UPDATE #1
and lest anyone thinks that the plunge in Coleman's approval in July was the result of a general dissatisfaction with Congress, take a look at the numbers for Minnesota's other Senator, Amy Klobuchar in the same time frame at http://www.surveyusa.com/...