Barkley taking from Franken more?

[fulllib]

Watching this Senator election, I think the anti-Coleman sentiment is there. The negative attacks affected him more, especially when Franken came out with commercial that explained that the footage Coleman used of Al flailing his arms was really just a story he told about Wellstone.

I think the Research 2000 data bears this out.

Already voted numbers run like this:

Obama 58%
McCain 34%

Franken 45%
Coleman 33%
Barkley 22%

It looks like McCain and Coleman have drawn the same voting percentages from already voted. Granted, some may be voting for Obama and Coleman, but Franken tied him to Bush pretty well.

Looks to me that Barkley is making a huge impact here.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/31/184456/53

[Eric J in MN]

1. Franken was trailng in most polls before Barkley joined the race,

...and then Franken was leading for a while after Barkley joined the race.

If Franken loses, I won't blame Barkley.

[fulllib]

2. That's fair.

I felt during the debates especially, that Barkley wasw gaining some real traction playing the nice guy while Coleman and Franken fight it out (though personally, I thought it was more Coleman than Franken. Ha!)

But whatever traction Barkley has gotten, it still requires Franken to pay attention to it and answer it effectively, which I don't know that I have seen done so well.