We won’t the lose the Senate seat against Franken, so we’ll have to disagree there. If we didn’t lose the 6th as an open seat in 2006, I don’t believe we’ll lose it this year. Michele Bachmann is a fantastic Congressmember. The 3rd district candidate looks fairly decent against a Dem opponent of whom has never won office, but I haven’t seen the polling data there. Unless McCain totally tanks, I find it exceptionally hard to believe he loses MN by 20% (not even Bob Dole lost by that much, you’d have to go back to Goldwater for that). I think more likely it will be by no more than 5%. If this supposed appeal to disaffected Hillary Dems is to believed, he may even have a halfway decent shot of winning the state (although I wouldn’t put good money on that right now).
I think it’s about 50/50 for the Senate seat, but I have no idea what’ll happen with a third party candidate. For the sake of full disclosure, I have personal issues with Norm Coleman, so part of me wants him to lose, but obviously having a liberal dunce like Franken isn’t what I want either.
If you go back and look at the stats for the 6th race in 2006 (I’m sure you’ve got ‘em), the combined total for the DFL and IP candidate that year were higher than Bachmann’s. The Independence candidate from 2006 is running as the DFL candidate this year. If he can hold onto both his votes and the DFL votes, he’ll win. She’s way over the top with some of her rhetoric on social issues, not the kind thing that sells well in Minnesota.
I know the 3rd district quite well - I grew up in Edina, so its my home district. This is one of the few authentic swing districts in the country, and the DFL’s been creeping up bit by bit. If they continue at that rate, they’ll win this year.
I don’t really think that Obama will win by 20 points, but I think he’ll win by more than Kerry, which I recall was about 10 points.