Dayton leads by 7% in Strib poll

Democrat Mark Dayton holds a significant lead in the gubernatorial campaign, according to a new Star Tribune poll released over the weekend. Dayton beats Republican Tom Emmer 41-34 percent in the poll with a week left before Election Day. Independence Party candidate Tom Horner remains little more than a spoiler in the new survey, drawing only 13 percent. The Strib’s poll of 999 likely Minnesota voters was conducted between Oct. 18 and 21 and has a +/- 3.9 percent margin of error.

The Strib’s surveys have consistently shown Dayton leading Emmer, with the new poll’s seven-point margin closer than their last poll in September. While polls from the Strib and MPR have generally put Dayton in a comfortable position in the race, Rasmussen and KSTP‘s polls paint a much closer election, with Dayton and Emmer locked in a dead heat. With such widely diverging polling results, TPM’s PollTracker gives Dayton only a slight 3.6 percent edge on average.

Patrick Caldwell is the American Independent’s Minnesota correspondent.