Daily Digest: Minnesotans split on Kavanaugh
Good morning. Welcome to Tuesday and another poll, this one a look at the Supreme Court fight.
1. Poll shows partisan divide over Kavanaugh. Even before sexual assault allegations surfaced against U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh over the weekend, Minnesotans were closely split on whether he should be confirmed to the nation's highest court. An MPR News/Star Tribune Minnesota Poll of 800 likely voters showed 40 percent supported his lifetime appointment, while 39 percent were opposed. The remaining 21 percent of voters were undecided about Kavanaugh, a circuit judge on the United States Court of Appeals. The responses demonstrate the stark political division over President Donald Trump's latest nominee. Republicans in the poll professed near-universal support for his pick, while three quarters of Democrats opposed Kavanaugh. Independents who were polled were split. (MPR News)
2. Census will reshape Minnesota's legislative map. Redistricting isn’t just for congressional districts: Minnesota’s 67 State Senate and 134 House Districts will need to be redrawn in the wake of the 2020 Census, too. And while we’re not at any risk of losing any seats in the Legislature — those numbers are set by law — differing rates of population growth in the current districts means the 2022 election map could look different from today’s. (MinnPost)
3. Comeback kids? Voters in the St. Cloud area will see some familiar names on the November ballot. Four former state legislators are attempting political comebacks as candidates for local offices. Two are running for county commissioner and two are running for school board. (MPR News)
4. These are some serious campaign followers. It’s been called the strangest job on the campaign, the hardest job on the campaign and the most mind-numbing job on the campaign. But unless you work in and around the efforts to elect people to public office, you might not even know it exists. It’s the tracker: the person whose job it is to follow the opposing side’s candidate — and record everything they do or say. Usually staffed by a young campaign worker, the job is one piece of what’s known as opposition research, the gathering of information about candidates that might make people less willing to vote for them. (MinnPost)
5. How shaky is confidence in voting? In a sign that America's two centuries-old democracy is under strain, nearly 2 in 5 American voters do not believe elections are fair, according to a new NPR/Marist poll. Nearly half of respondents lacked faith that votes would be counted accurately in the upcoming midterm elections. Race, gender and partisan identity are all a factor for those who question the cornerstone of the democratic system. Nonwhite voters, women and Democrats all report substantially greater doubts about the fairness of elections compared to Republicans, 91 percent of whom believe elections are fair. (NPR via MPR News)
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