A Minnesota Democrat desperate to keep her seat in the U.S. Senate has collapsed in the polls with just days until the election.
A poll released Wednesday by Minneapolis’ KSTP and Survey USA showed that incumbent Sen. Tina Smith (D) has blown what was once an 11-point lead over her Republican challenger, Jason Lewis.
Smith now leads Lewis by just a single point, putting the two candidates in what KSTP described as a “dead heat” with Election Day right around the corner.
A tight race
According to the Daily Caller, Smith led by 11 points in the KSTP/Survey USA poll as recently as September, but by early October, that lead was down to only five points. Now, it is razor-thin and within the poll’s five-point “credibility interval,” which is like a margin of error.
In other words, anything could happen in this race, which is good news for Republicans hoping to retain their majority in Congress’ upper chamber.
Other polls still show Smith with a larger lead, but they vary widely as to how much she’s in front. A Civiqs poll shows the same 11-point lead Survey USA had in September, but Change Research only has Smith up four points, according to the Daily Caller.
However, both of these other polls are rated lower than Survey USA, which had the only A rating from Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight among the three.
Looking forward
The differences between these polls call into question the polling average clocked by RealClearPolitics, which has Smith ahead by 5.8 points in the race. It’s hard to believe, especially knowing that the historically more accurate and highly rated polls are telling a different story.
What’s more, Republican voters may be turning out for President Donald Trump this year in droves not anticipated by these polls — and that would benefit the GOP all the way down the ballot. In the race for the White House, Trafalgar Group, which correctly predicted the results both in 2016 and in the 2018 midterms, currently shows much closer numbers than most other surveys.
In addition, the head of Trafalgar has said that there is a “hidden vote” for President Trump that polls have not been able to count, The Hill reports. Trump supporters certainly have plenty of reasons to keep their views hidden, given the violence and harassment that some have faced.
Indeed, Biden may have been “way ahead” in the polls for months now, but a full 56% of voters said just weeks ago that they thought Trump would win, according to a Gallup poll cited by Just The News. Americans know that almost all the polls were wrong in 2016, and it seems like many of them expect a similar trend in 2020.
If Democrats like Smith do end up on the losing side come Nov. 3, it may finally show those on the left that a weak candidate with a radical agenda just isn’t enough to sweep them into power when there’s chaos in the streets and a pandemic still roiling our economy — no matter what liberal pollsters want them to believe.
The post Poll shows Minnesota Senate race neck-and-neck after Democrat incumbent blows 11-point lead first appeared on Conservative Institute.
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