Zogby: Klobuchar, Pawlenty score well

Posted at 11:58 AM on June 22, 2006 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)

The quarterly Zogby numbers are out in the Wall Street Journal's (the well-known liberal mouthpiece) battleground polls. Once you get past the unnerving voice of a woman saying "click on the states for more information," (well, duh. Really? People couldn't figure that out on their own?), we find that in the Senate race, Klobuchar leads Kennedy by about 49-percent to 41-percent.

In the gov's race, Pawlenty over Hatch 45 percent to about 40 percent; a reversal of fortune for the incumbent.

Now the folks who don't like the results will natter on about Zogby's methodology and poor predictions (thus revealing a belief that polls predict anything in the first place).

Zogby's numbers in the Senate race haven't moved. Here's the thing, though. I don't think people give a rip about either of these races yet. I'm not seeing, as a severe anecdote, the traffic on our Campaign 2006 site this year as in past years and Select A Candidate isn't doing much this year as in past years.

Granted, in the past we had a presidential race that was hard to ignore, but I'm beginning to believe that more people than usual have just tuned out the election. I've always seen a huge jump in traffic in these areas after Labor Day, and I expect I will see that again this year. But I don't know how to explain the apparent disinterest prior to that becuase it seems more severe than usual.

If true, I suppose that could mean all the energy -- words and money -- expended so far by each campaign against the other has either fallen on deaf ears, or on those in the other candidates' camps.

Of course, I also suppose at this point in the campaign the goal is just to raise $$$, not votes.

(Update 4:07 p.m.) - Speaking of surveys, I've been remiss not to mention the pleasing site upgrade at Rasmussen Reports. One of my favorite spots is the party affiliation trend which monitors, apparently, the swing -- or not -- in favor. The site is also now nicely tabbed to integrate news issues, political people, and election polling.

Unfortunately, there's no search function. Who puts up a Web site anymore without a search function? It's like a blog without comments.

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Comments (2)

Bob, is there some reason that you didn't mention Ford Bell's poll numbers in your post? According to Zogby, Ford is in a virtual dead heat with Kennedy. Although not as impressive as Klobuchar, still pretty good considering Ford is a newcomer and has not accumulated the kind of contributions of his two rivals.

Posted by David Upworth | June 22, 2006 4:29 PM

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Yes, that's my fault, when I was on the gov's tab (which I looked at second), I meant to go back and look to see how Bell polled. Well, actually, I went back to see if they included Bell in the question at all in the first place because I think it's ridiculous not to be doing three-way polling on either one of these races.

In the gov's race, Peter Hutchinson, just for the record, was polling in "single digits" according to the WSJ.

Posted by Bob Collins | June 22, 2006 4:36 PM

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