Now these are some poll results Norm Coleman should challenge. KSTP-TV played a new SurveyUSA poll it commissioned as showing that almost half of Minnesotans want the former senator to concede the state’s ongoing Senate contest to challenger Al Franken. But that’s not quite what the survey results really say.

It’s true that 49 percent of respondents said they disagree with Coleman’s decision to challenge the recount results. But when asked directly what they thought should happen next, only 44 percent said Coleman should concede. And that’s significantly better (for Coleman) than the 55 percent who told the same pollsters a month ago that the loser should not file a legal challenge in court if he thought the process was unfair. (UPDATE: The Daily Kos released a similar poll the day after this one.)

If you read about the Minnesota recount in a book, you’d think it was fiction. Here are some more nuggets from a reading of the SurveyUSA poll results, organized by (mock) book titles.

Men Are from Franken, Women Are from Coleman

KSTP and others emphasize that smaller percentages of Minnesotans in the new poll approve of Franken and Coleman (37 and 38 percent, respectively) than voted for either man on Election Day (42 percent each). But hidden within the new results is a growing gender gap — not that it matters, electorally speaking. Men disapproving of Franken’s handling of the recount comprised 52 percent of the sample pool a month ago; now only 42 percent of guys disapprove of Franken generally. But women approving of Franken in the recount has fallen from 45 percent in December to a shockingly low 30 percent generally favorable today.

Meanwhile, Coleman’s esteem sank in the eyes of both sexes. Women approving of Coleman’s handling of the recount was 48 percent on Dec. 4, with only 38 percent generally approving of him on Jan. 7. Men dropped even more dramatically, from 54 percent to 37 percent.

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Recount

The only statistically significant “0 percent” that appears on the pollster’s cross-tabs is for the number of Republicans who said they feel the recount was unfair to Franken. (Interesting: There was no “unfair to both candidates” option in either poll taken after the election.)

How to Get Richie Without Even Trying

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie’s approval rating remains high, falling only from 61 percent a month ago to 56 percent today. His negatives snuck up a bit more, however, with the proportion of voters polled who disapprove of the job he’s done on the recount rising from 26 percent to 34 percent.

KSTP’s report on the survey:

The new poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percent, or in the case of the question about Ritchie, 4.4 percent.