Two polls show that the amendment might get defeated while two others show a slight lead for anti-gay marriage activists.

On Thursday, the St. Cloud State University Survey was released showing that 47 percent of Minnesotans thought the constitution should not be amended and 44 percent said it should. The difference is within the poll’s 5 percent margin of error, making the result a statistical tie.

The St. Cloud Times notes that the margin changes drastically depending on what type of phone the user answered: 48 percent of landline phone users supported the amendment compared to 39 percent of cell phone users.

A KSTP/SurveyUSA poll released on Wednesday found that 46 percent of registered voters support the amendment while 40 percent said they would vote against it. Interestingly, the poll also asked whether someone would not vote on the issue, which is considered a “no” vote in Minnesota. Ten percent said they did not plan to vote at all on the question bringing the total of opposition and under-vote to 50 percent, within the poll’s 4.3 percent margin of error making the question a statistical tie.

The landline versus mobile split was also present in the SurveyUSA poll. Only 34 percent of mobile users planned to vote for the amendment while 50 percent of landline users planned to vote for it.

The Star Tribune released its Minnesota poll on Tuesday showing that 48 percent of Minnesotans support the amendment, 43 percent opposed it and 8 percent are undecided. The results were within the poll’s margin of error, meaning that this poll as well was a statistical tie.

The result matches closely with what SurveyUSA found but completely opposite of the St. Cloud State University poll.

The one poll that was an outlier in this week was a poll by QEV Analytics commissioned by Minnesota for Marriage, the group advocating for the gay marriage ban. In that poll, 51 percent of voters said they would vote for the amendment and 40 percent would vote against it.

Minnesota for Marriage released the poll in response to the Star Tribune poll, which the group calls biased.

“The Star Tribune survey showing us with a five point lead substantially understates our true position. This is not surprising given the newspaper’s historic bias against conservative issues and candidates,” Minnesota for Marriage chair John Helmberger said in a statement. “We are releasing our own survey, which utilized the actual wording of the amendment question being presented to voters, to show that we enter the campaign in a very strong position.”

The QEV poll excluded media and political employees and their families from the poll. It asked, “Are you, or anyone in your household, employed with an advertising agency, newspaper, television or radio station, or political campaign?” Anyone who answered in the affirmative was excluded from the poll.

The poll also differed in that it heavily sampled older Minnesotans. Only 35 percent of the poll’s respondents were under age 50, while 60 percent were 50 years old and over.

QEV has been the pollster of choice for the National Organization for Marriage which is part of the Minnesota for Marriage coalition.

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.

A SurveyUSA/KSTP poll released Wednesday evening found that a slim majority of Minnesotans would vote for a ballot initiative that would place a ban on gay marriage in the Minnesota Constitution. According to the poll, 51 percent of registered voters surveyed said they would vote in favor of the amendment, while 40 percent say they’d vote against it. Eight percent said they would not vote either way. The poll differs greatly from two other polls conducted on the issue so far this year.

SurveyUSA polled 552 registered voters on Monday and Tuesday in a survey that has a margin of error of 4.3 percent. The poll is a huge shift from a similar poll last spring that showed 63 percent of Minnesotans would vote for a constitutional ban on gay marriage and 33 percent who would not.

Two other polls have been released so far in 2011 related to the anti-gay marriage amendment. In January, the Minnesota Family Council and the National Organization for Marriage — two groups that lobbied for the amendment — 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 last week found that 55 percent oppose the amendment while 39 percent favor it.

A KSTP/SurveyUSA poll released Friday evening has Rep. James Oberstar ahead by just 1 percent over Republican challenger Chip Cravaack: Oberstar took 47 percent to Cravaack’s 46 percent, with 7 percent undecided. Oberstar’s communications director John Schadl criticized the poll: “Survey USA’s methods generally swing anywhere from two to six additional points to Republican candidates in a given race,” he said. A two- to six-point range is far from the 35 points Oberstar won by two years ago.

Cravaack and Oberstar held on to their own parties in the poll, but independents broke for Cravaack 56 percent compared to Oberstar’s 32 percent. The margin of error is 3.9 percent.

“Ultimately, voter turnout will determine the outcome of this election,” Schadl said in a statement. “Last night over 1,000 people turned out for the DFL rally on the Iron Range. We have more than 1,000 volunteers across the District working for Jim. We are going to win this and Jim Oberstar is going to continue to serve as Minnesota’s Eighth District Congressman.”

Democrats buoyed by a string of polls showing Mark Dayton pulling ahead by a healthy margin got a sobering report Thursday night: A KSTP/SurveyUSA poll shows Dayton up by 1 point over Republican Tom Emmer in the race for governor. Independence party candidate Tom Horner got 13 percent, with 6 percent undecided. It’s the first SurveyUSA poll in Minnesota to include cell phone users.

The poll found that both Dayton and Emmer had strong support from their bases with 78 percent of DFLers for Dayton and 76 percent of Republicans for Emmer. Independents liked Emmer and Dayton evenly at 37 percent. Self-described moderates broke for Dayton by a 2-to-1 margin, and tea partiers liked Emmer at 25 to 1. Emmer led among men and voters under 50. Dayton took women and voters over 50. Dayton had more support in the Twin Cities and Iron Range while Emmer out-polled him elsewhere.

“Impossible to say who has the late advantage in the Minnesota Governor’s race, according to SurveyUSA’s final pre-election tracking poll for KSTP-TV in Minneapolis,” the pollster says. “DFL candidate Mark Dayton has never trailed, but neither in 3 polls has he led by more than 5 points.”

On cell-phone-only voters, “CPO respondents account for 15% of likely voters. Unlike the findings in some academic research, and unlike SurveyUSA data in California, CPO respondents in Minnesota are not politically different than respondents interviewed on their home phones.”

A MPR/HHH poll released on Thursday showed Dayton up by 12, a St. Cloud State University poll on Tuesday had him up by 10 points, and a Star Tribune poll had him up by 7 percent this weekend.

Rep. Tim Walz expanded his lead over Republican challenger Randy Demmer, according to a KAAL-TV/SurveyUSA poll released on Wednesday. The poll found Walz breaking the 50 percent mark, with Demmer getting 41 percent. The poll also found that among voters in the First Congressional District, DFLer Mark Dayton narrowly leads Republican Tom Emmer in the race for governor at 42 percent to 41 percent. Independence party candidate Tom Horner got 13 percent.

Walz and Demmer took most of the votes in the poll. IP candidate Steven Wilson got 4 percent, while independent candidate Lars Johnson got 2 percent. Four percent were undecided.

The economy was the top issue in the district with 58 percent of voters rating it as their primary concern.

The poll surveyed 800 people between Oct. 22 and 26. SurveyUSA has not polled mobile-phones in Minnesota this cycle and the KAAL story doesn’t mention that they did in this case. The survey had a margin of 4.2 percent.

Emmer topped Margaret Anderson Kelliher 41 to 33 percent with Independence Party (IP) candidate Tom Horner getting 9 percent and 17 percent undecided.

Against Mark Dayton, Emmer got 41 percent to Dayton’s 34 percent. Horner received 9 percent with 15 percent undecided.

Matt Entenza had the lowest level of support when matched with Emmer. Emmer got 41 percent to Entenza’s 31 percent. Horner had 10 percent and 16 percent were undecided.

The margin of error was 4.1 percent.

The poll also asked party affiliations: 36 percent of respondents were Republicans, 35 percent were Democrats and 24 percent were independents.

Pawlenty earned the approval of just 42 percent of those polled, while 66 percent disapproved. According to Smart Politics:

This marks the lowest approval rating ever for Pawlenty, according to a Smart Politics analysis of more than 70 similarly-worded non-partisan public opinion polls dating back to the onset of his first term in office in 2003, including more than 50 polls conducted by SurveyUSA since Spring 2005.

SurveyUSA also asked about Pawlenty’s ambitions for higher office. On the question of whether Pawlenty should run for president in 2012, those polled were decisively against it: 28 percent said he should, 63 percent said he shouldn’t, and 9 percent weren’t sure.

Only 16 percent thought his ambitious travel schedule made him a more effective governor, while 40 percent said “less effective,” and 41 percent thought it had no impact.

The poll asked, “How important do you feel it is to give people a choice of both a public plan administered by the federal government and a private plan for their health insurance?”

Seventy-two percent of Republicans, 71 percent of Independents and 86 percent of Democrats polled said they felt the choice of both was important. But, 46 percent of those polled also said they were concerned that health care reform would limit access to doctors.

When the respondents were read a description of President Obama’s health care reform plan, 51 percent said they supported it and 79 percent of those said they strongly favored it. Forty-three percent opposed Obama’s health care reform plan.

The poll also asked respondents if they had health insurance. Eighty-five percent said they currently had health insurance, with Republicans reporting the highest rates, 88 percent versus 85 percent for Democrats and Independents. Almost a third (31 percent) were already covered under “public options” such as Medicare, Medicaid or the military’s Tricare.

The SurveyUSA results are comparable to other polls asking similar questions.

A July 30 New York Times/CBS poll found that 66 percent support the public option as a choice alongside private insurance.

And a June poll by NBC and the Wall Street Journal that was worded identically to the SurveyUSA poll found 76 percent supporting a choice between a public and private option.

The survey of 500 residents also gauged support for a $1 billion tax bill that was passed by the DFL-controlled legislature last week, but vetoed by Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty.  Roughly half (48 percent) of respondents expressed support for an override of the Governor’s veto, while 44 percent opposed an override.

In SurveyUSA’s most recent poll looking at Pawlenty’s popularity, 46 percent expressed approval of the job he is doing, while 50 percent indicated disapproval.