Sabato: Senate Race leans GOP

Posted at 10:38 PM on October 1, 2008 by Tom Scheck

UVA Political Science professor Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball says Minnesota's Senate race leans Republican:

Minnesota: Here's a state that still leans Democratic but overall can be unpredictable politically. Six years ago, Republican Norm Coleman won a narrow victory over former Vice President Walter Mondale (D), the substitute nominee after the tragic death of Senator Paul Wellstone (D) in a plane crash. Coleman is beatable in 2008, but it seems questionable whether satirist Al Franken can do it. Franken has had problem after problem. He was found to have had a substantial number of overdue tax bills in various states; some of his off-color satires from past years have not sold well in this more politically correct era; and some videotaped Franken tirades, laced with obscenities, have turned up in Coleman's advertising. Also assisting Coleman is the independent candidacy of Dean Barkley, appointed to the Senate for a few weeks by voluble Independent Gov. Jesse Ventura in 2002. Thanks to Barkley, Coleman can win with a plurality of less than 50% in a state that Barack Obama will carry by a wide margin. Had Democrats nominated one of their members of the U.S. House, they might have picked up this seat. But they didn't, and Coleman continues to work this state hard, and absent a massive Obama sweep, this one LEANS REPUBLICAN.

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