New Poll in Govs Race

A new poll conducted by the StarTrib shows that the race for Minnesota Governor will go "down to the wire." Upon polling 813 likely voters, 43 percent favored Gov. Pawlenty and 41 percent favored Attorney General and DFL nominee Mike Hatch. With the margin of error at 3.4 percent, the poll is a statistical dead heat.

Interestingly enough, Peter Hutchison, the Independence party candidate, is only polling at 5 percentage points. In the past two gubernatorial elections, the Independence party has played a large role--however Ventura, the candidate and winner in '98 and Tim Penny, the candidate in '02 were already polling in double digits at this point in the summer.