Battlegrounders
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MINNESOTA: NOT BAD FOR W. [John Hinderaker 10/28 05:55 PM]

President Bush and John Kerry have been more or less neck and neck in Minnesota polls. This is consistent with what the Republican Party's own polling has shown. Today, a new survey by the Humphrey Institute, a poll that has usually favored Democratic candidates, has Bush leading Kerry by three points, 47% to 44%. Among independent voters, Bush leads Kerry by a remarkable 69% to 20% on the issue of fighting terrorism.

The Republican Party and the Bush-Cheney campaign are superbly well-organized in Minnesota. Everyone expects their efforts to turn out the vote to be exemplary. A week or so ago, the Bush-Cheney people sent officials from another state — a major swing state that most people put in Kerry's column — to Minnesota to study how the Minnesota campaign and party apparatus are organized. It seems a little late in the day for that kind of effort, but here in Minnesota, given the recent poll results and the campaign's confidence in their get-out-the-vote effort, the mood is one of quiet optimism.