A new St. Cloud State University poll of the Minnesota gubernatorial race shows Democrat Mark Dayton leading Republican Tom Emmer, with the Dems poised to pick up the statehouse being vacated by Republican Governor and potential presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty.
The numbers: Dayton 40%, Emmer 30%, and Independence Party candidate Tom Horner 19%. The survey of likely voters has a ±5% margin of error. There is no prior St. Cloud poll for direct comparison. However this number is roughly in line with other polls that have been released recently.
The TPM Poll Average has Dayton with 40.4%, Emmer 35.3%, and Horner 15.0%.
Interestingly, this poll also tested how the election might turn if it were conducted under instant-runoff voting, an idea that has been much discussed in Minnesota and has now been adopted in both of the Twin Cities, due to the presence of a centrist third party that picks up significant support.
When an explanation of the process is provided, the result hardly changes at all for voters’ first preferences: Dayton 39%, Emmer 30% and Horner 19%. When the second preferences of Horner voters are distributed to Dayton and Emmer, Dayton still leads by a slightly narrower 46%-39%.
