Star Tribune story on Senate race ticket-splitters was truer last time

On today’s Star Tribune cover, Patricia Lopez makes a case that Minnesota voters who don’t intend to vote a straight party line at the top of the ballot could play a critical role in the outcome of the state’s U.S. Senate race. If that sounds familiar, it’s because the Strib printed essentially the same story two years ago about voters who backed Democrat Amy Klobuchar for U.S. Senate and Republican Tim Pawlenty for governor.

The difference is that in 2006 the poll numbers justified the fuss: While only 5 percent of those who said they preferred Democrat Mike Hatch for governor said they’d support Republican Mark Kennedy for Senate, more than a quarter of respondents who liked Pawlenty favored Klobuchar too. This time around, only 5 percent of McCain supporters say they’d vote for Democrat Al Franken for Senate, and only 7 percent of Obama supporters say they’d vote to re-elect Republican Norm Coleman. The small numbers this year practically cancel each other out.

Today’s story puffs up the current ticket-splitting phenomenon by postulating an impossible total-coat tail scenario for one candidate but not for the other. That is, if Coleman gets the vote of everyone who chooses McCain, he wins — but only when you don’t count a vote for Franken from every Obama supporter.

Lurking behind the numbers in the Senate race is Independence Party candidate and one-time U.S. senator, Dean Barkley. He’s left out of the story’s graphics which, on A1 and the jump page, show only the foursome of McCain, Obama, Coleman and Franken. But in a sidebar, the unseen Barkley’s effect on the race looms large. Pie charts made from poll results show him drawing support from 19 percent of Obama’s voters and 15 percent of McCain’s.

Which goes to show that Barkley’s presence will impact the outcome much more than any over-hyped population of people planning to split their ballots between major-party president and Senate candidates. That is, unless voters susceptible to the ever-growing onslaught of viscious attack ads draw inspiration to ticket-split from a front-page newspaper story about nothing.