Franken In Good Shape For Re-Election

Senator Al Franken (D-Minnesota) won his initial run for the Senate in 2008 by the slimmest of margins. It took a lengthy statewide recount of the ballots and a court fight that went all the way up to the Minnesota Supreme Court before Franken was finally declared the winner (with a 312 vote margin out of 2.89 million votes cast). He was not sworn in until July 7 of 2009 -- about 8 months after the election.

But the people of Minnesota seem to be pretty happy with his job performance, giving him a current approval rating of 51% (with 43% disapproving and 6% unsure). Considering how mad Americans are at Congress, those are some pretty good numbers (numbers that many other politicians in Washington would love to have). And right now, it looks like his re-election will be much easier than his 2008 election.

Five possible opponents have been identified as possible GOP nominees for Franken's senate seat, but all of them are double digits behind him right now. Those possible candidates all share a couple of problems -- they are not real well known, and they must overcome the damage the national Republican Party has done to itself. The first might be overcome with enough money and media coverage, but the second is going to be difficult -- especially in Minnesota, which is not known for being a very red state.

The numbers above are from the latest Public Policy Polling survey (conducted Between October 27th and 29th of 895 Minnesota voters, with a 3.3 point margin of error).