About 48 percent of Minnesotans support the amendment voters will judge on the November 2012 ballot, 43 percent are opposed to the ban and 8 percent are undecided.

The poll shows that people under 34 overwhelmingly rejected the amendment, 58 to 33 percent, and Minnesotans over 65 overwhelmingly approved of the ban at 70 percent to 26 percent. People who had higher incomes, higher education and lived in the Twin Cities metropolitan area were more likely to reject the amendment.

Predictably, the state split along party lines with Republicans supporting the amendment, 66 to 26 percent, and DFLers rejecting it 60 to 35 percent. Independents were split with 48 percent supporting it and 44 percent rejecting it.

The poll differs sharply with one conducted by the paper in May. That poll found that 55 percent opposed the amendment and 39 percent supported it, but that poll asked people to respond to the statement: ”Please tell me if you would favor or oppose amending the Minnesota constitution to ban same-sex marriage.”

The poll released on Tuesday asked an entirely different question: “Would you favor or oppose amending the Minnesota Constitution to allow marriage only between a man and a woman?”

As other pollsters have found, anti-gay marriage amendments lose support when those polled understand that in addition to defining marriage as between a man and a woman, such amendments bar same-sex couples from marrying.

Public Policy Polling which has been doing monthly polling on a similar amendment in North Carolina noted that there was a vast swing in support for the amendment depending on wording.

“Voters are against ‘prohibiting’ recognition for gay couples. But if you word it in such a way that all you’re doing is defining marriage as between one man and one woman, voters are ok with that,” said PPP’s Tom Jensen. “You’re asking about the same thing in both cases, but the semantics make a huge difference and Republicans clearly know what they’re doing with the language that’s on the ballot.”

A poll released Sunday found that a majority of Wisconsin residents disapprove of Gov. Scott Walker’s performance in office, although state residents split on whether he should be recalled.

The survey by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute mirrors results six months ago. Fifty-six percent of those surveyed strongly or somewhat disapproved of Walker, while 42 percent somewhat or strongly approved.

The poll also found Wisconsin residents had grown less pessimistic about the economy in the last six months.

“There is a rising sense of optimism, and tempers that were flaring in March are subsiding a bit,” said University of Chicago Professor Will Howell, who directed the poll, in a statement. ”Interestingly, this is has not redounded to the benefit of the governor.”

Howell said Walker could benefit if the recall effort came to be about the economy or recall elections rather than his performance in office.

And in the battleground state of Wisconsin, the poll found high support for Pres. Barack Obama, 54-42, with Obama beating all Republican challengers by at least 10 percent.

A screenshot from the new video.

The presidential campaign of U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann released a video Tuesday featuring campaign manager Keith Nahigian outlining Bachmann’s “path to victory,” which includes a must-win scenario in Iowa.

“This is the beginning of the track to the presidency. She has to win Iowa then move on from there,” Nahigian narrates over the low-tech video. “Normally that happens and it triggers a lot of infusion of money, of support and a momentum wave of media that will take you all the way through. By winning Iowa she will be on the path to victory.”

Nahigian said the campaign expects to “compete” in New Hampshire, but not “dominate” like it plans to in Iowa.

“If she wins in Iowa, does well in NH, wins SC, she is basically on a very good path to win the nomination,” Nahigian said. “We are on the exact path that we designed and the exact path to victory.”

Bachmann has slipped to the back of the Republican pack in national polls. Some venues have also raised questions, citing the quality of another recent video, about her ability to raise funds to compete with big spenders like Mitt Romney and Rick Perry.

Minnesota has the third lowest number of residents lacking health insurance coverage, according to a survey by Gallup. The state ranks below Massachusetts and Vermont, two New England states that have instituted universal health care insurance programs. According to the survey, 9.4 percent of Minnesotans lack health insurance.

Massachusetts topped the list of states with the lowest number of uninsured at 5.3 percent. In 2006, the state instituted a mandate requiring residents to carry health insurance. Vermont has the second lowest uninsured rate at 9.2 percent. Vermont recently enacted the nation’s first single-payer health care system.

Rounding out the top 10 were Connecticut, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Maryland, New Jersey and Delaware.

Despite the strong showing in the state-based rankings, Minnesota’s rate of uninsured has climbed over the last few years from 8.7 percent in 2009.

Minnesota also placed third in 2010 and 2009, according to Gallup. The Midwest and Northeast have historically had low uninsured rates.

The bottom ten were all southern states, except for California and Alaska. Texas had the highest percent of uninsured with 27.4 percent followed by Mississippi, Alaska, Florida, Oklahoma, California, Louisiana, Arkansas, North Carolina and Georgia. Texas has consistently led the nation in having the highest percentage of its population without health insurance in the Gallup survey.

It was less than a month ago that U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann took top honors in the Iowa Straw Poll and was surging in national polls. But for many observers, her performance in the Republican presidential debate last night cemented her campaign’s steady decline.

Until Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s entrance, Bachmann was viewed as the main threat to frontrunner Mitt Romney. Because of her dramatic performance in earlier debates, this debate was viewed as her main hope to recapture her former inertia after polls showed her performance slipping. But she was a small presence in the debate, and didn’t receive a question from moderators until after they’d asked a question of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who has dawdled at about one percent in the polls.

While Romney and Perry earned much of the media’s gaze with some low-level sniping, Bachmann focused her attacks on Pres. Barack Obama, primarily on his health care reform efforts, although her comments didn’t much distinguish her in a debate where all her opponents shared similar stances.

“As I go across the country and speak to small business people, men and woman, Obamacare is leading them to not create jobs. We know that from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, but I know it firsthand from speaking to people,” she said. “Obamacare is clearly leading to job-killing regulations not job-creating regulations.”

The media consensus is that Bachmann missed an opportunity to stand out in this debate. The Los Angeles Times titled a post-debate story, “As Perry and Romney spar, Bachmann fades.” Time magazine’s Joe Klein asserts that it’s now a two-way race, lumping Bachmann into his column in a category for third-tier candidates called “The Others.”

In a further sign of bad news for Bachmann’s campaign, Reuters broke news Thursday that the high-level staff changes in Bachmann’s campaign were due to personnel issues and disagreements about the day-to-day running of her campaign.

As ABC News notes, Bachmann’s campaign, which formerly sent out flurries of emails and statements, sent out only one press release about the debate (and an additional release about Bachmann’s energy stances): ”Bachmann closed out the debate by affirming she is the strong leader the country needs during these uncertain times – not more speeches and Washington politics.”

Following a quick ascendance to the front of the race for the Republican presidential nomination last month, recent polls show U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann steadily losing support.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted between Aug. 29 and Sept. 1 found Bachmann with only six percent of the support among both Republican-leaning voters and the general public. In the month and a half since previous poll was conducted, Bachmann lost about half her supporters. She currently trails Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former Massachussets Gov. Mitt Romney, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas.

The poll had a margin of error of 3.5 percent.

The official entrance of Rick Perry to the race could be to blame for Bachmann’s dwindling support—Perry leads the pack with the support of 29 percent of Republican-leaning voters.

But Bachmann appears to have larger problems too. Only four percent of those surveyed thought she would be the best candidate to defeat President Barack Obama. Only five percent thought she’d be the best candidate to deal with the economy. And Bachmann’s campaign has recently been wracked by a series of resignations, leading some to speculate that her campaign hit its high point by winning the Iowa Straw Poll.

The Minnesota House of Representatives conducted its annual poll of legislative issues at the Minnesota State Fair this year, and among the questions was how fair-goers would vote on an amendment to the state constitution limiting marriage to one man and one woman and barring same-sex marriage for future generations. Poll respondents rejected the amendment with 29.8 percent voting “yes” and 66.5 percent voting “no.”

According to the House, the poll “is an informal, unscientific survey of issues discussed in prior legislative sessions.”

Both sides of the debate over the amendment rallied their troops to the fair to vote in the poll. Minnesota for Marriage, which supports a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, and Minnesotans United for All Families, which opposes the amendment, sent email alerts to activists during the fair urging them to take the poll.

The poll had by far the highest turnout ever: 12,549 people took the poll compared to 9,926 last year.

Other controversial issues were on the poll this year as well. A slight majority favored requiring showing a photo identification in order to vote (50.8 to 46.4 percent), a majority objected to allowing the Legislature to call a special session (25.4 to 64.2 percent), and a slight majority approved of gambling expansion to generate new government revenue (51.6 to 40.1 percent).

Minnesota for Marriage is touting a poll released last week by the religious right group, Alliance Defense Fund, that showed a majority of Americans believe that marriage should be defined as between one man and one women. That poll, which found 62 percent of Americans back that definition, was conducted by Republican pollster Public Opinion Strategies and has been criticized for its odd sampling as well as biased questioning.

“The proof is in the pudding,” said Chuck Darrell, director of communications of the Minnesota Family Council, in a press release on Wednesday. But the poll differs starkly with several others that have found a slight majority of Americans support legalizing gay marriage.

The poll’s sample left out anybody who comments on political blogs, anyone who works in politics and anyone who works in media, prompting critics to note that it would exclude anyone who follows the gay marriage issue closely.

Another difference is in the wording. The poll asked voters to weigh in on the definition of marriage as opposed to the legality of gay marriage.

“A key difference is that these [mainstream] polls focused on legality rather than the ‘definition’ of marriage,” the group Faith and Public Life wrote in response to the poll. “Given that the political debate surrounding same-sex marriage pertains to legislation rather than the contents of the dictionary, it’s hard to see the relevance of ADF’s data. It certainly is interesting, but it’s not even close to a refutation of the overwhelming body of current nonpartisan opinion research pointing to majority support for legal recognition of same-sex marriage.”

Still, proponents of the anti–gay marriage amendment said it was proof that they are on the side of voters.

“The results of the ADF poll show clearly that a strong majority of Americans, and surely a strong majority of Minnesotans, believe that marriage is a unique institution that should remain only between a man and a woman,” said Jason Adkins, Executive Director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference, the policy wing of the Roman Catholic Church in Minnesota. “In the survey, voters saw marriage as ‘special’ and most importantly, they saw the direct connection between marriage, stable families, and the benefits to children.”

A poll released by Public Policy Polling on Wednesday shows that Minnesotans are dead even on amending the Minnesota Constitution to ban same-sex mariage. PPP asked voters the same question that will be on the ballot in 2012, and 47 percent of respondents said they opposed the amendment. Forty-six percent said they approved, while 7 percent were unsure. The poll also found that a solid majority of Minnesotans support rights for same-sex couples.

In addition to support for the amendment, PPP also asked voters whether gay marriage should be legal in Minnesota. Minnesotans where split on the question, with 46 percent saying same-sex couples should be allowed to legally marry and 45 percent saying they should not.

When voters were given a series of options regarding the legal status of same-sex couples, the numbers changed a bit. Thirty-eight percent said gay couples should be allowed to marry, another 34 percent said that such couples should be allowed to form civil unions, and only 26 percent said that gay couples should have no relationship rights at all. Seventy-two percent of Minnesotans support either gay marriage or civil unions for same-sex couple.

The margin of error for the poll is 2.9 percent. The poll was conducted late last week.

“Minnesota voters are evenly split on gay marriage right now,” Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling, said in a press release accompanying the poll. “What’s interesting though is how fast public opinion is moving on this issue. It’s entirely conceivable that in another 17 months the state will have a clear majority supportive of same sex marriage. That’s the direction things are going in.”

Previous polls have been all over the map on the anti-gay marriage amendment.

In January, the Minnesota Family Council and the National Organization for Marriage — two groups that lobbied for the amendment and have formed a committee to push for its passage — commissioned a poll by Lawrence Research, whose owner assisted with the campaign to ban gay marriage in California. It found that 57 percent of respondents would vote for the amendment compared to 41 percent who would vote against it. In contrast, a Star Tribune poll two weeks ago found that 55 percent oppose the amendment while 39 percent favor it.

And last week, a SurveyUSA/KSTP poll found that a slim majority, 51 percent, would vote for the anti-gay marriage amendment compared to 40 percent who would vote against it.

A SurveyUSA/KSTP poll released on Thursday shows that only 27 percent of Minnesotans feel that Rep. Michele Bachmann is qualified to be president. Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty fared better among Minnesotans, with 55 percent seeing him as presidential material. Both Bachmann and Pawlenty lost in a matchup against President Obama here, however, an indication that if the election were held today, and either were the GOP’s nominee, neither would capture their home state.

The poll found that Obama would beat former Pawlenty in Minnesota 48 to 43 percent and Bachmann 57 to 32 percent.

Pawlenty had a 3 percent favorability deficit in Minnesota with 35 percent viewing him favorably and 38 percent unfavorably. For Bachmann, that deficit was a whopping 27 percent.

Pawlenty announced on Monday that he is running for president after more than two years of speculation. Bachmann is set to announce her presidential plans in her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa, sometime next month.