Robowalz and a Walz-Penny comparison

Found in Mark Fischenich's political notebook at the Mankato Free Press:

Walz offers coattails

The one candidate area counties were unanimous on was Democratic Congressman Tim Walz of Mankato. He won ’em all on his way to picking up 63 percent of the vote to 33 percent for Republican challenger Brian Davis of Rochester.

The Franken campaign may have given a pre-election hint of what internal polling was showing about Walz’s popularity. Walz’s voice was used in a robo-call to district residents, urging them to “please vote for Al Franken,” promising Franken “will work with Barack Obama to bring fundamental change.”

The call gave Walz a chance to return the favor from two years ago when he was a little-known candidate and Franken brought his celebrity power to several Walz events, including walking with him in the St. Peter Fourth of July parade.

Walz and Franken also rallied supporters in a final-week tour in Rochester, Owatonna, Faribault and Mankato.   Other sections of the Fischenich article note that Franken carried Blue Earth and Nicollet Counties, though underperforming Walz and Obama in south central Minnesota.

Another interesting comparison in a different section of Fischenich's article:

A record total
Did Walz set a record for number of votes received by a 1st District candidate? Walz’s percentage of the vote received was the highest since former Democratic Congressman Tim Penny won 74 percent of the ballots in drubbing Republican Tim Droogsma in 1992, substantially higher than Walz’s 63 percent.

But Walz picked up 207,749 votes, according to the unofficial final tally, compared to Penny’s 206,369 in 1992.

Both tallies were chalked up in presidential election years, so we suspect that Walz's number reflects higher turnout this year. The First in 1992 is also not the First in 2008 because of re-districting.

And in honor of all those roads no longer in the First (and Rick, who wrote he's traveling on a lost highway), a little roots music from Hank:

Comments

[Chris]

I've often compared Brian Davis to Tim Droogsma. What I can't believe is that the GOP rejected a serious candidate, Sen. Dick Day, in favor of a neophyte like Brian Davis. While I don't think Day would have prevailed against such strong headwinds, he would have had a respectable showing and made the race competitive.

I found it very interesting that after Davis won the primary, all of the major national political analysts changed the outlook of the race from leaning Democratic to likely Democratic. They were all right on the money.