In winning the most votes by a slim margin, Franken is “tainted,” according to Republican state Sen. Geoff Michel. And while Michel won’t find an argument with that assertion from the Wall Street Journal’s editorial writers (from whom he may have taken inspiration for his choice of words), history suggests that a slim winning margin won’t hurt Franken at the polls six years from now.

Eric Ostermeier, writing at his Smart Politics blog from the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, takes a look back at past victors in Minnesota elections to the U.S. Senate and finds that “there is virtually no difference in the re-election success rate of those who won narrowly and those who won by large margins.”

In fact, Ostermeier reports, senators who won by double-digit margins did slightly worse in the next election cycle than those who won by narrower margins. His conclusion:

In short, if past is prologue (and all things being equal), should Franken prevail and choose to run in 2014, he would seem to have about a 67 percent chance of winning reelection, as 15 of 22 Senators have done before him.

If it seems a bit early (or even a bit nutty) to run the numbers already on Franken’s chances in 2014 on a day when senators of his own party thought better of even trying to seat him a first time — well, it was early. A date-stamp reveals that Ostermeier posted his electoral research on Tuesday, Jan. 6, at 2:38 a.m.