Romney-Bills and Klobuchar-Obama Voter Gaps Could Make History in Minnesota

Kurt Bills is running 22 points behind his party’s presidential nominee in Minnesota according to a new Star Tribune poll – on pace to eclipse the worst-ever mark of -17 points since the DFL merger in 1944

How bleak are things looking for the Kurt Bills campaign?

Smart Politics recently reported that Bills was on track for the second worst performance by a Minnesota U.S. Senate candidate since the Great Depression.

And the polls just keep getting worse, not better.

A new Star Tribune survey found Bills trailing one-term DFL incumbent Amy Klobuchar by an astounding 65 to 22 percent – his worst showing in a poll to date.

Bills – who has previously been publicly critical of polls as Democratic-skewed – has little room to complain this time around as the sample of likely voters in the same poll also found Mitt Romney closing in on Barack Obama at the top of the ticket, trailing by just 47 to 44 percent.

If those numbers hold – though it seems difficult to believe things could turn out this bad for a major party nominee in the Gopher State – Bills will shatter another record in the Gopher State.

Smart Politics analyzed the difference between the vote for each party’s U.S. Senate and presidential nominees when they both appeared on the same ballot over the last seven decades.

Of these 22 U.S. Senate candidacies, the largest ever deficit was turned in by Republican Jerry Brekke in 1976.

Brekke won just 25.0 percent of the vote that year with Gerald Ford winning 42.0 percent at the top of the ticket, or a -17.0-point gap.

Only two other candidates have sunk double digits below their party’s presidential nominee since the DFL merger: DFLers Hubert Humphrey III in 1988 and AL Franken in 2008.

Humphrey notched only 40.9 percent of the vote in his loss to David Durenberger in 1988 – 12 points behind Michael Dukakis’ 52.9 percent en route to the Massachusetts governor carrying Minnesota’s 10 electoral votes against George H.W. Bush.

In 2008, Al Franken’s 42.0 percent was 12.1 points behind Barack Obama – in significant part due to the strong showing by Independence Party nominee Dean Barkley who won 15.2 percent and depressed the numbers of both Franken and Norm Coleman.

Usually the gap between a party’s vote for president and U.S. Senator in Minnesota is rather small.

The vote for 10 of the 22 major party U.S. Senate candidates on the ballot in Minnesota during presidential election years since 1944 was within four points (in either direction) of their presidential nominee.

For 16 of 22 nominees the spread was within single digits of the vote for the presidential ticket.

The average (absolute value) difference between the presidential and U.S. Senate votes has been 6.3 points across all candidates.

On the flip side, should Amy Klobuchar end up anywhere near the 65 percent mark she garnered in the recent Star Tribune poll, she will likely find herself outperforming the top of the ticket in a presidential cycle at a historic level.

The Star Tribune numbers show voters giving Klobuchar 18 more points of support from Minnesotans (65 percent) than what they give President Obama (47 percent).

Since the DFL merger, the best a U.S. Senate candidate has performed vis-à-vis their party’s presidential nominee is +12.6 points when Hubert Humphrey won 67.5 percent of the vote in 1976 and Jimmy Carter carried the state with 54.9 percent.

Other particularly strong senate candidacies were recorded by Walter Mondale in 1972 (+10.6 points over George McGovern) and Dave Durenberger in 1988 (+10.3 points above George H.W. Bush).

Gap in Vote for U.S. Senator and President by Party in Minnesota Since DFL Merger, 1944-2008

Year	Party	Senate nominee	%	Presidential nominee	%	Difference
1976	DEM	Hubert Humphrey	67.5	Jimmy Carter	54.9	12.6
1972	DEM	Walter Monday	56.7	George McGovern	46.1	10.6
1988	GOP	Dave Durenberger	56.2	George H.W.Bush	45.9	10.3
1984	GOP	Rudy Boschwitz	58.1	Ronald Reagan	49.5	8.6
1960	DEM	Hubert Humphrey	57.5	John Kennedy	50.6	6.9
1996	GOP	Rudy Boschwitz	41.3	Bob Dole	35.0	6.3
1964	GOP	Wheelock Whitney	39.3	Barry Goldwater	36.0	3.3
1948	DEM	Hubert Humphrey	59.8	Harry Truman	57.2	2.6
1952	GOP	Edward Thye	56.6	Dwight Eisenhower	55.3	1.3
2000	DEM	Mark Dayton	48.8	Al Gore	47.9	0.9
1948	GOP	Joseph Ball	39.8	Thomas Dewey	39.9	-0.1
1996	DEM	Paul Wellstone	50.3	Bill Clinton	51.1	-0.8
1952	DEM	William Carlson	42.5	Adlai Stevenson	44.1	-1.6
2008	GOP	Norm Coleman	42.0	John McCain	43.8	-1.8
2000	GOP	Rod Grams	43.3	George W. Bush	45.5	-2.2
1964	DEM	Eugene McCarthy	60.3	Lyndon Johnson	63.8	-3.5
1960	GOP	P. Kenneth Peterson	42.2	Richard Nixon	49.2	-7.0
1984	DEM	Joan Anderson Growe	41.3	Walter Mondale	49.7	-8.4
1972	GOP	Phil Hansen	42.9	Richard Nixon	51.6	-8.7
1988	DEM	Hubert Humphrey III	40.9	Michael Dukakis	52.9	-12.0
2008	DEM	Al Franken	42.0	Barack Obama	54.1	-12.1
1976	GOP	Jerry Brekke	25.0	Gerald Ford	42.0	-17.0

Table compiled by Smart Politics.

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