Mason-Dixon: Obama/Romney tied in FL, Romney+9 in MT, Obama+8 in MN

[Tender Branson]

There is an interesting point to be made about Independents though. They are surging in numbers everywhere, yet are vanishing from the polls. Are they staying home because of the negativity so far in the campaign?

When pollsters screen for likely voters, about 80-85% of registered Democrats and Republicans say they will vote in November, but only about 50-55% of Independents do. Of course this has an impact on the likely voter polls, meaning more partisans and less Indies.

[Wisconsin+17]

Moving MT to 'solid Obama'.

[cinyc]

MT: Mason-Dixon
Romney 51%
Obama 42%
Johnson 2%
Undecided 5%

So Romney +9.

[Mister Twister]

Obama should throw a few million at Montana. Why not?

[Tender Branson]

Maybe a MN poll will be released as well, considering they polled the amendments for the Star Tribune.

[Tender Branson]

Obama leads by 8 in Minnesota:

48% Obama
40% Romney
  5% Johnson

The Star Tribune Minnesota Poll interviewed 800 likely Minnesota voters Sept. 17-19. The margin of sampling error is +/-3.5 percentage points.

http://www.startribune.com/politics/170563536.html

[Eraserhead]

Obama should throw a few million at Montana. Why not?

Probably not worth it if this poll is accurate. I think it's probably a bit closer though.

[Reds4]

A little surprising that Minnesota is closer than Montana.. not sure if that is accurate.

[mondale84]

Junk polls. No way Romney is over 50 in MT and leads Obama by 9 points when Obama is ahead nationally by 5-7.

[Linus Van Pelt]

4-5 years ago the fastest growth in MT was in the west, and so it was plausible that the state was trending D. But now with the shale oil boom the east is growing faster - a lot of the corporate/engineering base for the Bakken is in Billings, which is much larger than any city in western ND. And that's not a D crowd. So really I don't think that the D's should be too optimistic here.

This is somewhat countervailed by the fact that the state D's are quite effective and the state R's tend to run total jokers.

[J. J.]

Junk polls. No way Romney is over 50 in MT and leads Obama by 9 points when Obama is ahead nationally by 5-7.

Arguably, one of the best pollsters around, and one that has been recognized here for close to a decade.

MT is probably trending R this year.