Minnesota Public Radio and the Humphrey Institute released a pair of polls in recent days that show Democrats picking up ground in both the U. S. Senate race and the presidential campaign. The survey was unique in that it was conducted over two distinct time periods, before and after Thursday’s vice presidential debate.

The presidential poll indicated that the Obama-Biden ticket received a significant bounce from the debate. In polling conducted just prior to Thursday night’s showdown the Democrat held a narrow 47-43 lead. But following the debate Obama’s margin ballooned  to 14 points.

The survey found a similar phenomenon in the Senate race. In the initial three days of polling Coleman held a solid nine-point lead (40 percent to 31 percent). But during the second period of polling, Franken shot to a four-point lead (41 percent to 37 percent) over the incumbent. Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley held steady at 14 percent throughout the survey.

The initial polling was conducted between September 29 and October 1, with 346 respondents. The latter survey took place between October 3 and October 5, with 418 respondents. The margin of error for both was roughly +/- 5 points.

Lawrence Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the Humphrey Institute, says that the initial intent was to look at the effect of the VP debate. But the two-tiered survey also happened to break just as Congress was passing the $700 billion bailout package. So it also served as a useful barometer to gauge how that development is effecting the races. “This is an almost ideal experiment model for looking at whether there would be change from two different kinds of stimulus,” Jacobs says.

The clear conclusion: recent developments have given Democrats a boost.