The National Republican Congressional Committee has scaled back its TV ad buys in the Twin Cities metro for Republican Erik Paulsen, who is running in a tight race with DFLer Ashwin Madia, MPR’s Polinaut reports. At the same time, the NRCC is buying ads for Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann who faces a challenge from Elwyn Tinklenberg.

The NRCC will cancel a week of ads on WCCO and has scaled back on KARE. The committee also bought $126,000 in ad time for Bachmann from October 20 to election day.

The shift is bad news for Paulsen at a time when Democratic polling shows Madia leading in their race, 44 percent to 39 percent, as the Minnesota Independent’s Chris Steller reported this morning.

For Bachmann, the news of her pardon letter to Bush in support of a central figure in the Petters Group scandal, and her backtracking on the letter, could spell trouble. In addition, the Tinklenberg campaign is touting a recent poll showing a generic Democrat leading a generic Republican in the 6th Congressional District at 45 percent to 37 percent. Despite that, however, Bachmann had a comfortable lead in a September poll of the district.