New poll shows that Walz has a slight lead over Jensen in tight Minnesota governor race

CATHY WURZER: Ahead of that televised debate, a new poll from MinnPost and In Bold Research shows Governor Walz maintaining a slight lead over Scott Jensen, 47% to 42%. Here to talk more about the poll and the race is Peter Callaghan.

Peter covers state government for MinnPost. Hey, Peter, welcome to Minnesota Now.

PETER CALLAGHAN: Hello, Cathy. Long time, no see.

CATHY WURZER: No kidding. Hey, thanks for being here. Looking at today's poll versus a poll MinnPost took back in June, the governor has increased his lead slightly over Scott Jensen. Break down those top line numbers for us.

PETER CALLAGHAN: Well, it is sort of interesting, and you're right, we like to look at [AUDIO OUT] that was used in June to give us a baseline and to see where movement has been. In June, Tim Walz had 42% support, Scott Jensen 40% support, which is really a dead heat statistically.

And while it is still barely within the margin of error of this poll, Tim Walz is now leading 47% to 42% for Scott Jensen, with the other third party-- actually, the Marijuana candidates and the third party candidates splitting up a little under 5%-- and 5% still saying not sure, which is a pretty low number for [AUDIO OUT] people are making up their minds, it looks like.

CATHY WURZER: Mm-hmm. I was going to ask you about that-- what do you think that means, only 5% in your poll remain undecided?

PETER CALLAGHAN: Well, [AUDIO OUT] it means that there's been a campaign and people are decided. Maybe they were decided back in June. We only had a 7% not sure in June. But just as pollsters do, you try to push those undecideds a little bit.

You ask them a second time say, well, OK, but if you really had to make your choice, what would it be? And those just kind of break directly as the same as the poll. It went from 46 to 41 before they pushed the undecideds, then went to 47-42. We're seeing, and we'll have more of this this afternoon, but we're seeing a little higher undecideds in some of the other statewide races, as you would expect, because they don't get as much attention.

CATHY WURZER: Say, the demographic breakdown of Walz and Jensen supporters is interesting. Jensen appears to have a problem with female voters, Walz with male voters. So let's talk a little bit about that and then we'll talk about geographic support.

PETER CALLAGHAN: Yeah. I think that's been typical. The gender gap has been something we've talked about in campaign politics for a couple of decades now, where women voters are trending and tending to vote for Democratic and, in this state, DFL candidates, and men, the opposite.

You could argue that Democrats have a gender gap or a gender problem with men. But this is fairly dramatic. And you haven't asked yet about the abortion issue, which I'm going to talk about anyway, because we-- were curious as to, first of all, where abortion is appearing.

And it is not the top issue. Crime and inflation remain top issues, but is a significantly cited issue among voters. And then we wondered, well, is this collecting both abortion rights proponents and people who favor restrictions on abortions, and collecting them together so, therefore, it really isn't a telling issue?

In this poll, if you look at the crosstabs, which we will be posting shortly, show that people who cite abortion as their issue are overwhelmingly Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters. So that remains an important issue just because of how dominant it is among voters in key areas. So we still think abortion is a significant election issue.

CATHY WURZER: The geographic support for both candidates is stark. Walz is leading big in the metro, Jensen in greater Minnesota. He seems to get some burgeoning strength there in the suburbs. Can you talk about that?

PETER CALLAGHAN: Yeah. That was something that drew our attention as well, in that the suburban vote has shifted to Scott Jensen since our June poll but at the same time, the strength of the DFL candidate has gotten much larger in the Twin Cities-- and when we say that, we don't mean the region, we mean Minneapolis and St. Paul [AUDIO OUT] which is kind of where Democrats win elections.

They get such a lead in the Twin Cities that they can afford to lose greater Minnesota. But we were surprised to see the strength in what we consider the seven counties that are outside of the Minneapolis and St. Paul voters.

CATHY WURZER: So the battleground will be the suburbs?

PETER CALLAGHAN: Yeah. It often is if you just look back, particularly in legislative races, for the past decade or more. The party that wins those [AUDIO OUT] will get majority control in the legislature. And this year, it feels like, from looking at the issues that are citing, that it's a conversation [AUDIO OUT] between crime and inflation. And for a significant aspect or chunk of the vote, it's abortion.

CATHY WURZER: Say, with about three minutes left in our conversation, Peter, there are fewer debates this year than in the past. There's been a lot written and said about that. Being this is the first time in, what, 40 years that the Twin Cities television viewership won't see a gubernatorial debate-- but that debate tomorrow night, as I mentioned, will be seen in Mankato, Rochester, Duluth, and Fargo. What's the strategy for the governor's campaign to do this debate and none in the Twin Cities?

PETER CALLAGHAN: Well, if you feel like you're leading and you feel like your opponent is not as well-known, you would probably prefer to not expose them to more voters. Just in looking at our poll results, Scott Jensen's familiarity with voters has grown significantly since June, but so have his unfavorable ratings.

So it could be the flip side of that is if you have a candidate who you think the more they [AUDIO OUT] the less support they will have, you may want to take advantage and have more debates. The one key thing, and I listened to Brian's report before this, is that this is not in front of an audience.

Scott Jensen, I think, did very well at Farm Fest sort of for good and ill speaking to the audience that was in that room. The governor did not do as well and, I think, was thrown off his game, to some degree, by the crowd reaction. So that has been another condition of the governor's campaign that the remaining debates or joint interviews will not be with an audience.

CATHY WURZER: So you mentioned Scott Jensen's unfavorables. What are the governor's in your poll?

PETER CALLAGHAN: Yeah. Let me thumb for that real quickly. Just about every politician is underwater in their favorable, unfavorable ratings. It's just kind of where we are in the world. The governor has what is considered to be a net minus-2 to favorable to unfavorable-- meaning 46% viewed him favorably and 48% view [AUDIO OUT]

So that's fairly reasonable for an incumbent politician. [AUDIO OUT] found that 37% viewed him favorably and 44% viewed him unfavorably for a negative-7 on that favorability rating. But again, for Jensen in June, we had a 23% favorable and a 19% unfavorable.

So [AUDIO OUT] the more familiar with him, he's sort of falling into what is kind of a typical favorability, unfavorability [AUDIO OUT]. At minus-2, that's really not a horrible number for an incumbent.

CATHY WURZER: Mm-hmm. I wanted to ask you really quickly here with the time I have left-- the governor, whoever that will be, will work with a legislature that could be quite different after November the 3rd. What are you seeing in some of these legislative races? I know you did a piece last week on mailers that are going out in a couple of legislative races, one in Chanhassen, one in Woodbury, that are kind of tough.

PETER CALLAGHAN: I didn't find them to be more tough than in the past. But they are following a similar pattern as this whole campaign. Republicans are facing mail that talks about abortion very heavily. Democrats are being hit on mail that is looking at inflation, gas prices are a big one, and crime.

Those are being reflected in the mailings as well. But I also thought it was interesting that if you've got the entire state senate up for grabs, and as we looked at our races to watch, it was hard to get past five races that were really up for grabs that were going to determine majority control of the senate. And we could get to 15 in the house, but it just tells you how we've split up the state geographically and how people live. Most seats in the state are safe for one party or the other.

CATHY WURZER: Peter, always a pleasure. Good work. Thank you so much.

PETER CALLAGHAN: Thank you, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: Peter Callaghan covers state government for MinnPost.