Why is Minnesota now considered a "toss-up" state?

[question everything]

Someone on CNN mentioned this early this morning. Clear-something poll?

We voted last week. Went to City Hall and voted there.

[misterhighwasted]

1. Benchmark has Minnesota BLUE.

http://benchmark.shareblue.com/

[Angry Dragon]

2. They must have been trying to make Trump feel better

my precinct will vote Trump .......... but not me

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. It isn't. There was a recent kSTP poll favoring Trump, but

KSTP is owned by Hubbard Broadcasting - which is in turn owned by ardent Trump supporter Stanley Hubbard. The poll is almost certainly an outlier but probably skewed the poll aggregations. Hillary has been well ahead in all other MN polls.

[exboyfil]

4. For some reason 270towin

has WI as a toss up, but has assigned PA and CO to Clinton. Now I think she is comfortably ahead in all three, but it does seem odd.

With WI Clinton is at 268, and Trump has only one path to victory (take everything left on the board). A couple of tie options exist (the two single Congressional votes in ME and NE.

I would think MN is in better shape than WI. Not much polling has been done though.

[question everything]

5. This is their map

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/mn/minnesota_trump_vs_clinton_vs_johnson_vs_stein-6138.html

Which is strange, since the polls they report give advantage to Clinton, except one - Gravis - which is a tie

The 150 "toss-ups" are in gray


RCP Electoral Map
262 Clinton 150 Trump 126

[exboyfil]

7. 270towin has not assigned NH (so it is a toss up)

This map does not address the 2 Congressional toss ups (ME and NE).

The two maps flip between undecided and Clinton for MN and WI which both happen to have the same number of electoral votes (10).

I think if both maps used the criteria they assigned prior to the election in 2012, Clinton would probably already be at 300+. They have to maintain some aspect of horse race. You cannot toss up WI and MN and assign CO, PA, NH in my mind. Either all five are toss ups or all five are Clinton.

[geardaddy]

6. 538 has it Clinton's chances of winning MN at 85.2%

to tRump's 14.8%

[BainsBane]

8. Apparently Trump is polling well in the Iron Range

According to a local Clinton staffer. Mn-08 had the highest percentage of Dem votes in 2012 but this year looks different.

[question everything]

9. That's sad. I remember after the 2012 elections the iron range was such a large blue spce

on the map.

Sadly, like many laid off manufacturing workers - as were on 60 Minutes yesterday - they believe that Trump can bring these jobs back. No one can. These jobs are gone forever because of robots but also because steel from China is cheap.
And no Republican will block import of steel from China, interfering with the "free market."

[dflprincess]

10. Just posted on the Strib's website tonight:

http://www.startribune.com/in-minnesota-poll-clinton-widens-lead-over-trump/398272671/

In Minnesota Poll, Clinton widens lead over Trump
Minnesota Poll: Her 47-39 edge has grown 2 points since the last survey in September.

[div class = "excerpt"]
...Clinton leads Trump 47 to 39 percent in the poll of 625 registered Minnesota voters taken after last week’s third and final presidential debate. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson won 6 percent of support, while two other third-party candidates, the Green Party’s Jill Stein and independent conservative Evan McMullin, both drew just 1 percent.

Clinton’s lead over Trump is 2 points larger than in the last Minnesota Poll, in mid-September. She holds a huge lead in the state’s two most populous counties, Hennepin and Ramsey, and has shrunk Trump’s lead in the remaining Twin Cities counties to within the poll’s margin of error. Trump still holds a small lead in outstate Minnesota, but it too shrank since September.

In an important measure of momentum, Clinton seized the lead from Trump among independent voters, a group he had been winning in the previous Minnesota Poll. Only 6 percent of voters are undecided, a sign that people are making up their minds with Election Day just two weeks away.

While she did not break 50 percent, Clinton made gains by nearly every one of the Minnesota Poll’s measures. She leads among voters between ages 18 and 64, with her biggest lead in the 18-34 group; Trump catches up only among voters 65 and older, where the two candidates are tied. Trump is still leading Clinton with male voters, but she wipes that out with a much larger lead among female voters. Clinton is leading with voters who make less than $50,000 a year, while Trump has a smaller lead among voters who earn above that level.


Frankly, I wish it were closer. The only thing that can do her in is people not showing up because they think she has it tied up.

[question everything]

11. Still distrubing, statewise

While Clinton leads heavily in Hennepin and Ramsey counties, she is about even in the rest of the Metro, but is losing in the the rest of the state.

We listened yesterday to another interesting presentation by Professor David Schultz and he thinks that the Republicans will keep the house because, among other reasons, Dayton's declaration that the ACA is no longer affordable.

He also thinks that Angie Craig will win, but that both Bonoff and Nolan will lose.

[GopherGal]

12. Little recent polling

was the explanation when I read something about it last weekend. I guess with no statewide race and no tradition of being a swing state, not too many organizations were motivated to do a lot of polling in Minnesota lately. The Star-Tribune poll coming out might help give them enough certainty to call it.