The Mystery of the Missing Dayton Landslide

Here is a mystery I have been unable to fathom.  Over at the Real Clear Politics website, they have in their poll of polls incumbent Democrat Mark Dayton with a single-digit lead.  Not one of the three polls they list for the Minnesota governor’s race (or any other) has Dayton cracking 50 percent.  Overall RCP rates the Minnesota race as “leans” Democrat. 

Yet, reading the news coverage in our local media, one wonders why the election is still continuing.  At this point, Mark Dayton should have been re-elected for a second term by acclamation.

More bizarrely, the trend is moving away from Dayton.  Polls done until recently almost always showed Dayton with a significant double-digit lead, ranging as high as 24 percent over his Republican opponent.

What is wrong with Minnesota voters (at least the ones who respond to polls) that they seem so ungrateful for all that Dayton has brought to the state in his first term as governor?  The Minneapolis Star Tribune tells us that there are no issues on which Dayton could be vulnerable.

The economy is the strongest it’s been in the state’s 156-year history.  Our unemployment rate is the lowest in the entire United States.  The Star Tribune tells voters,

Minnesota Republicans hoping to seize control of the governor’s residence have a problem when it comes to the economy: The news is too good.

With the economy going great guns, one wonders why Dayton isn’t leading his race by 25 to 30 points.  Perhaps other issues are weighing on the minds of fickle voters.

The once controversial Senate office building project has now become the most popular public works project ever undertaken by the state.  The once-struggling MNsure health insurance exchange has now fixed all its problems.

So if the issues are all running in Dayton’s favor, why isn’t his lead more like 30 or 40 points in the polls?

It can’t be anything about the man, personally.  The Star Tribune tells us that the multi-millionaire Dayton exhibits a common touch not usually displayed in someone of his high birth.  Columnist Lori Sturdevant described Dayton’s recent trip to the State Fair,

Dayton is a son of one of Minnesota’s elite families.  But that fact fades as he tells of attending more than 60 State Fairs during his 67 years.  On the Star Tribune’s back porch Thursday, he told every-parent stories about a sister lost in the swine barn and a son talking him into a risky bungee jump.  His stoic reaction on the receiving end of a bucketful of ice water to raise money for the ALS Foundation will be one of the iconic images of the 2014 fair and campaign.

With such iconic images playing to an adoring public, how can we explain why Dayton isn’t leading his race by 40 to 50 points?

On last Friday’s TPT Almanac show (watch at the 42:40 mark), the consensus of the political science panel held that Dayton’s 8-point lead would shrink (not grow) as the election draws closer.  What gives?

I have a theory.  Perhaps the voters’ failure to overwhelmingly support Dayton arises from something outside the new utopia portrayed by the Star Tribune and other local media.  Perhaps the voters are reacting to the world as they encounter it.  Every time another employer moves out of state, a friend or loved one packs for a North Dakota job, another health care snafu arises, or that tuition bill arrives in the mail, Minnesota voters consider how the state has changed over the past four years.

Sometime in late October, the Star Tribune will endorse Governor Dayton for re-election.  Along with their endorsement, they will publish a poll showing Dayton with a 20 to 30 point lead.

Here’s what is less known: over the next two months, will local media report the world as it is, or the world as the Democrat campaigns wish it?