A new poll from Public Policy Polling finds that half or less of Minnesotans approve of Democratic U.S. Sen. Al Franken and Gov. Mark Dayton but they are still well ahead of the Republicans running against them.
The first public poll in the 2014 races released this fall finds that 51 percent of Minnesotans approve of Franken's job performance and 48 percent approve of Dayton's handling of his job. While those numbers do not compare to the 59 percent approval rating Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar has, making her one of the most popular senators in the country, they still show that more people like them than find them wanting.
Adding to the good news for the Democrats: the poll showed that none of the Republicans running against either of the incumbents even comes close to besting them.
Their solid positions a year out from their re-election bids mark a striking change from the first time they ran. Franken won his first election in 2008 by just a few hundred votes and Dayton won his by fewer than 10,000 votes in 2010.
But in head to head match-ups, both the senator and the governor had double digit leads over their Republican opponents, the poll found. The poll found that the Republican candidates, some of whom have been running for months, were largely unknown to Minnesotans.
"Republican challengers to Franken and Dayton seem to have serious name-recognition issues heading into 2014," the pollster's analysis said.
Public Policy Polling, which does polling for liberal and Democratic clients, surveyed 895 Minnesota voters between Oct. 27 and Oct. 29. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percent.
The poll was taken just after a non-binding, non-scientific Republican Party straw poll found Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Johnson was the leading choice for governor and state Sen. Julianne Ortman led the pack among senate candidates.
