Thoughts about the MN Independence Party

In the 2002 Primary just under 40,000 people voted in the Independence Party Primary between Tim Penny/Martha Robertson and Bill Daun/Rome Hanson. A total of 481,294 people voted overall which represented 18.57% of the registered voters.

The initial results indicate 17,731 people voted in this year Independence Party Primary which was more highly contested, at least on paper, between Tom Horner/James Mulder and Rob Hahn/Tom Harens. A total of 589, 761 (plus) people voted overall representing 18.97% of registered voters.

Specifically what do those numbers tell us, well nothing and everything all at the same time. Since we are talking about such a small portion of the overall electorate you can almost draw any conclusion and that means it is for us "talking heads" to figure out what they mean and explain it to everyone.

In this year's primary just over 3% of the votes cast were for the Independence Party. That's slightly better or in line with results 1998 (2.6%), under 2002 results (8.3%) and more than 2006 result (2.3%). However if we look at 2002 we will note there is no large scale competition between any party, this year a feisty three way battle in the DFL raged. In 2006 again there were no major battles in other parties. In 1998 there was a feisty battle between Skip Humphrey, Mike Freeman, Doug Johnson, Mark Dayton, and Ted Mondale, sound familiar.

There are a lot of similarities to the 1998 election, no US Senate, no incumbent, a well known DFL candidate battling a rising star in the Democratic party. People in general fell disfranchised by the current political deadlock. So it is far to say we can use the 1998 election as a model.

Since 1998 Minnesota has not only seen a population growth but an overall increase in the percentage of people register as voters. There are a number of reasons for this, including the fast food like convenience of registering at the polls, the motor voter registration and other statistical changes to our demographics (living longer, fewer children, so on and so forth). If we use 1998 as our model that means 2.6 million people will vote for our next governor, an increase of 400,000 over the 2006 elections. Assuming that number is correct with 2.6 million votes at stake what will it take to win?

900,000 votes. Peter Hutchinson suggested that 1 million votes would win the 2006 election, I think in 2010, without another major election (US Senate) occurring that number may be as low as 900,000 votes.

What we need to watch for as we move forward, Tom Horner's polling numbers. For argument sake we will say he is at 10 percent, if he is still sitting at 10 percent come Sept 15^th he will be a non-factor in the election; however if he continues to pull bigger numbers even a percentage point increase a week the momentum will build towards election.

Another telling sign will be how the Republican Candidate acts towards Horner's campaign. In 2006 Tim Pawlenty's campaign simply ignored the Hutchinson Campaign thus reducing the "free air-time" effect. The current Republican campaign cannot do that. At some point they will need to take the gloves off and refer to Tom by name. The moment that happens it will be almost a two point bump to Horner's campaign. Right now the Emmer Campaign needs to address the issue of taking on a well known name in the DFL. I suspect the gloves will come off early in that battle, say at the First Debate on August 13^th.

The money issue, which is driven by the first two issues, is obviously the most important issue. It is easier to raise money as you move up in the polls than staying stagnant or declining and the more personal the opposing parties (notably the Republican Party because they are behind right now) the easier it is to raise money.

So the numbers tell me that we are looking at a similar situation to 1998 and that is a good thing if you are supporter of the IP.