The Minneapolis Star Tribune shows that Kerry has opened an 8-point lead over Bush in Minnesota, 48-41. Now if you are supporting Bush and you aren't familiar with the Strib, you might think that's bad news. Nope. We Minnesotans know that whenever you see a Strib poll, you automatically add 10 points to the Republican number. (Every election the Strib reliably runs polls that are outlandishly skewed toward the Democrats.) By my calculations, then, Bush has a small lead in Minnesota. By way of comparison, the more historically reliable Pioneer Press has Bush leading 48-47. The example of the Strib is one of the reasons to be cautiously skeptical about electoral-college predictors (like Electoral-Vote.com) that have simple methods taking each state poll at face value. Part of my prediction is that Bush will carry Minnesota. If that happens, it should make the Strib embarrassed and cause them to re-examine their deeply unreliable polling methodology. But that will never happen.
Update: You have to check out a post from November of 2002, posted over at Powerline. They report on the final pre-election poll in the Coleman-Mondale race. The Strib's poll had Mondale over Coleman, 46-41. The Pioneer Press, on the other hand, had Coleman over Mondale, 47-41. Coleman ended up beating Mondale, 50-47. When I wrote above that Minnesota conservatives know to add about 10 points to the Republican numbers in a Strib poll, I wasn't joking.
