From the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza:

6. Minnesota’s 3rd District (R): Among the newly open seats, none is more difficult to analyze than this one. On its face, the district should be very competitive; President Bush won it with just 51 percent in 2004 and the suburbs surrounding the Twin Cities, which are at the heart of the seat, have been moving Democratic of late due to dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq. But, the race simply hasn’t developed as quickly as some ranked ahead of it on the Line. For Republicans, state Rep. Erik Paulson seems like the establishment choice. There is no such consensus among Democrats as state Sen. Terri Bonoff, Iraq war vet Ashwin Madia and Edina Mayor Jim Hovland are all in the contest. Minnesota politics goes at its own pace and this race just isn’t gelling yet. (Previous ranking: 3)

It’s a reasonable assumption to look at seats like this from D.C. and say, “It’s moving left because of the war.” But there are more than a few DFL activists on the ground in CD3 who would tell Cillizza that this trend started long before American operations in Iraq, based on numerous issues other than Bush administration foreign policy.