This Washington Post article highlights polling that shows that 81% of democrats and 61% of independents won’t vote for a candidate accused of sexual harassment by multiple women. The leading candidate in the MN democratic primary race for governor, polling at 28%, has a running mate who multiple former staffers say dismissed complaints of sexual harassment and even knowingly rehired a staffer who had suddenly retired when accused of sexual harassment. The story is growing but still hasn’t gotten much coverage by the MSM.
The dynamics of the race predict some unexpected consequences- The leading candidates polling at 28%, AG Lori Swanson running for governor and Congressmember Rick Nolan for Lt. Governor, are the most conservative democrats in the race. Next polling at 24% are more progressive Congressmember Tim Walz running for Gov and legislator Peggy Flanagan for LG. In distant 3rd are the Erins, both extremely progressive state legislators and polling at 11%.
Now PolSci 101 taught us that as we progress towards the election supporters of the lowest polling candidate (the Erins) will tend to shift their preference to a higher polling candidate (Walz and Flanagan) with the most similar position in the political spectrum. And while word of Swanson and Nolan’s sexual harassment scandal has yet to really blossom in the MSM, a lot of DFL primary voters have heard of the scandal and will most likely shift their votes to Walz and Flanagan. Gaining support from both the right and left of the DFL and running an excellent campaign, Walz and Flanagan will likely pull ahead and defeat likely GOP candidate Pawlenty by at least the 11% margin that polling predicts.
Except for one minor problem, our state DFL leadership and their penchant to spend even six figure sums on losing candidates just because they were “endorsed” by less than a thousand party activists. Reading the campaign finance reports showing little spending on the losing Erins campaign I was hopeful that the party was going to let them lose without party assistance and save their money for more important and winnable races. Unfortunately I was wrong and the state party is filling my mailbox with two identical glossy mailers for the Erins most every day, despite their own database IDing me as a Walz/Flanagan supporter.
So lets game out the scenario here… Despite all the DFL party’s spending on their behalf the Erins still lose, but keep enough voters from migrating to Walz/Flanagan to give Swanson/Nolan a primary win and make them the DFL candidates for governor in the november election, and as the scandal broke they had an 11% lead. The MSM and GOP discover the Nolan sexual harassment scandal and it leads the nightly news for weeks before the election. Remember the 81% of democratic voters that won’t vote for a candidate accused of sexual harassment? If even half of the DFLers leave the governor’s race ovals blank on the ballot likely GOP candidate Pawlenty wins. If they stay home most of the DFL ticket goes down to defeat.
So yes, the DFL leadership may be helping elect Pawlenty and the rest of the GOP slate…
Sassy Democrat 