Did KSTP tip Paulsen on results of Survey USA’s new re-do poll?

A new Survey USA poll shows for the first time a spread between the two leading candidates in Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District that’s greater than the margin of error. Republican state Rep. Erik Paulsen leads Democrat Ashwin Madia by 5 percentage points, 46 to 41 percent, while Independence Party candidate David Dillon draws 10 percent.

Another way Paulsen’s ahead: KSTP gave Paulsen’s campaign an early preview of the poll results, according to Joe Bodell at Minnesota Campaign Report. Citing unnamed sources, Bodell writes that KSTP revealed the poll results to Paulsen but didn’t tell Madia until Madia’s staff, having heard heard Paulsen’s campaign had the information, called KSTP to ask if they could also see the new numbers too.

Madia spokesman Dan Pollock wouldn’t comment except to say that the results contradict the anecdotal evidence the campaign is seeing on the ground. MnIndy is awaiting comment from KSTP. Dillon campaign manager Bruce Anderson tells the Minnesota Independent that Dillon didn’t get a head’s up; Anderson learned the poll results by watching the news. When told of the Minnesota Campaign Report story, he said he’s skeptical of anything sinister and anyway doesn’t see a big advantage for Paulsen in hearing poll results early.

Anderson did have a problem with Survey USA’s previous poll, however, in which Dillon’s name wasn’t part of the candidate preference question. (“Some other candidate” was the wording instead.) His complaint to Survey USA prompted the firm to admit its mistake and offer to do another poll using Dillon’s name and without charging KSTP, Anderson said.

The re-do poll shows a sudden swing in a race that has looked effectively tied in previous polls, including a Survey USA poll that came out just a day before the polling began for this one. Survey USA suggests Paulsen’s lead might be due to a TV ad showing Madia with darker skin than the son of Indian immigrants really has. But if so, the effect would seem to arise more from widespread news reports about the ad’s darkening technique rather than the National Republican Congressional Committee’s ad itself. The NRCC released its ad a full week before the first of Survey USA’s pair of back-to-back polls last week.

The new 3rd District survey results were ready on Halloween along with a separate survey showing a tie in Minnesota’s 6th District race between Republican U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachmann and Democrat Elwyn Tinklenberg. But KSTP waited until yesterday to announce the news along with results from two other new Survey USA polls: a dead heat for U.S. Senate and a remarkably small 3-point deficit in the state for Republican presidential candidate U.S. Sen. John McCain. That result led Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com to observe that “SurveyUSA’s polling in Minnesota has been very, very weird all year… SurveyUSA does not have a Republican lean in general, but in Minnesota, it has consistently had a huge one.”

Survey USA seems to have taken to heart criticism of earlier 3rd District polls in which the pollster posed the candidate preference differently. This time the question matches the firm’s Oct. 6–7 poll question, with each candidate, including Dillon, identified by name and party. Survey USA’s analysis also finds the pollster apparently responding to criticism that it isn’t trying to count Minnesotans who are likely to vote but will register at the polls:

Respondents for this survey were chosen at random from Minnesota registered voter lists. Minnesota allows same-day registration, and any in Minnesota who on Election Day 2008 register and vote for the first time are undercounted here. If same-day registrants disproportionately favor one candidate, that candidate’s support will be understated here, but that is just one source of possible error when polling a contest as volatile as this one now is.

Here’s Survey USA on the possible influence of the NRCC skin-darkened ad in the 3rd District race:

Coincidence? Or Correlation? Women, Whites Look Twice at ‘Darkened’ Madia in Minnesota’s 6th District … In three previous SurveyUSA polls, the Democrat and Republican were separated by 3 or fewer points. Then, ads appeared with photographs of Madia that may have been altered to darken his skin color. It is impossible to know whether the ads had much to do, or nothing to do, with these newest poll numbers: Madia’s support among whites has dropped from 45% on 10/08/08 to 39% today. Madia’s support among women has dropped from 46% on 10/08/08 to 41% today. Madia’s support among Independents has dropped from 43% earlier this week to 34% today. When all of the demographic subgroups are combined… 42% of voters now have an unfavorable opinion of Madia, almost twice the 23% Madia unfavorable number that SurveyUSA found on 08/29/08.