Congressional challenger Steve Sarvi’s campaign is touting new polling data that suggest Rep. John Kline is more vulnerable than generally perceived. Most notably, in a generic ballot, the Republican and Democratic parties each received support from 40 percent of respondents. What’s more, only 39 percent of those surveyed cited Kline’s job performance as good or excellent, while 44 percent rated his tenure in Washington as fair or poor.

“It has become very clear in this election cycle that many congressional seats formerly considered ‘Republican’ seats are now in play,” writes pollster Donna Victoria in a memo. “Very little is safe for the GOP at present.”

Continued: Click “Read more”
The survey of 400 likely voters in the 2nd Congressional District, commissioned by the Sarvi campaign, was conducted by Goodwin Simon Victoria Research. It was taken from May 19 to 22 and has a margin of error of +/-4.9 percentage points.

The poll indicates that Kline could be hurt by his close association with the Bush administration. Roughly three-quarters of those polled held a negative view of the president, while 69 percent indicated the country is on the wrong track. “Kline’s right-wing record is an extremely target-rich environment for effective comparisons,” Victoria writes in the polling memo.

Kline’s seat is generally viewed as safe by national political pundits. Neither the Cook Political Report nor the Rothenberg Political Report lists the race as among the competitive contests they’re tracking. Kline has retained his office by 16 points in each of the last two election cycles.

But Sarvi’s campaign is attempting to make the case that recent political trends in the district give him a legitimate shot at unseating the three-term incumbent. DFL Sen. Amy Klobuchar won the 2nd by a 10-point margin in 2006 and Democrats have picked up 11 state legislative seats in the last two election cycles.

Sarvi’s campaign argues that once voters become familiar with the challenger, an Iraq War vet and former mayor of Watertown, they will gravitate to his side. For instance, according to the poll, once voters are read a single positive statement about Sarvi, they back his candidacy 49 percent to 37 percent over Kline. “The clear thing here is that as soon as we tell people about Steve he beats Kline and beats him pretty easily,” says Bridget Cusick, communications director for the Sarvi campaign.