Poll Results Show Pawlenty And Hatch In Dead Heat

09/20/2006

Pat Kessler
Reporting

(WCCO) There are surprising new numbers in the race for Minnesota’s next governor. The Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs just announced the results of its poll in the Minnesota’s 2006 gubernatorial race.

According to the poll’s findings, if the election were held today, Democrat Mike Hatch would get 44 percent of the vote, Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty would grab 42 percent and Independent Peter Hutchinson would receive nine percent.

With a margin of error of 3.9 percent, these results indicate a dead heat between Pawlenty and Hatch. More than that, other evidence in the poll shows the Governor should be far ahead.

According to the poll, more Minnesotans feel the state is going in the right direction than wrong, feel the state of the economy is good, and voters give Gov. Pawlenty a lot of the credit. So why isn’t he getting any traction? The poll suggests two possible reasons.

“Tim Pawlenty is not getting a bounce for things going well,” said Larry Jacobs of the Humphrey Institute. “Instead, what we see is voters picking up on a few issues—education and health care—and really rallying to his opponent, Mike Hatch. And as a result, you’ve got a dead heat.”

Surprisingly, both Hatch and Pawlenty are leading Hutchinson with voters who declared themselves “Independent” voters, with 38 percent siding with Pawlenty, 35 percent with Hatch and only 21 percent with Hutchinson.

By far, most Minnesotans rank education and health care as their top issues, both claiming 23 percent of the overall count. In contrast, the Iraq war only netted 12 percent, gas prices 5 percent and gay marriage 4 percent. And among the voters who considered education or health care the leading issue in this election, about 55 percent would vote for Hatch. Only 33 percent for Pawlenty.

The Humphrey Institute Poll also shows that, unlike other Republicans, Governor Pawlenty still has support of voters who dislike President Bush, which represents a “quality of life” backlash that could show up in November.