Keith Ellison has been Minnesota’s attorney general for nearly eight years.

But if the latest numbers are right, the Democrat is walking into November without a lead.

A new KSTP/SurveyUSA poll puts Ellison and Republican challenger Ron Schutz in a dead-even race at 43% each, with another 15% of voters still undecided.

Ellison led this same matchup by eight points just two weeks ago. The full cushion disappeared before the general-election campaign even reached Labor Day.

Eric Daugherty put the swing in one brutal frame Wednesday morning:

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KSTP/SurveyUSA found the movement is not confined to one corner of the electorate. Its post-primary poll examined age, gender, region and ideology, and nearly every cut exposed a pressure point for the incumbent.

Schutz leads among voters 35 and older, while Ellison’s strength is concentrated among younger voters. When the electorate is split at age 50, Ellison leads the younger group by seven points and Schutz leads the older group by six.

The geographic picture is just as uncomfortable for the incumbent. Schutz holds a significant advantage across Greater Minnesota, while Ellison remains ahead in the Twin Cities.

Even inside the metro, however, Ellison is below 50%. KSTP notes that is the weakest Twin Cities showing among the three DFL candidates tested for Minnesota’s top statewide races.

SurveyUSA also cautions that undecided voters can determine a close contest and that polling carries uncertainties beyond the stated credibility interval, including question wording, response rates and who can be reached.

Ellison leads Schutz 41% to 34% among moderates. One-quarter of that group is still undecided, leaving the incumbent well short of locking down the voters most likely to swing the race.

Those undecided voters are now the race. The eight-point cushion is gone.

The Minnesota Republican Party immediately seized on the number:

That response is partisan, of course. The underlying warning is not.

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An incumbent who cannot crack 45% is vulnerable because voters already know him. Ellison does not have the luxury of introducing himself or blaming low name recognition.

He is also seeking a third term after surviving a razor-thin reelection in 2022. That contest was decided by less than one percentage point.

Schutz enters the fall with far less statewide name recognition than Ellison. A challenger tied at 43% with 15% undecided has room to define himself while the incumbent is already defined.

The Ron Schutz campaign is leaning into a straightforward contrast: crime, fraud, law enforcement and what it calls Ellison’s preference for political fights over the basic work of protecting taxpayers.

Schutz grew up on a Minnesota dairy farm, served as an Army JAG officer and built a long career as a trial lawyer. His campaign says he has been recognized among Minnesota’s top attorneys for more than two decades.

He has framed the attorney general’s office as a law-enforcement and consumer-protection job, not a platform for national ideological warfare. In a state battered by massive fraud scandals, that argument has an obvious opening.

Ellison, meanwhile, remains deeply involved in legal clashes with President Trump’s immigration agenda.

Just this week, he announced a lawsuit seeking to force Texas to return a federal ICE agent charged in connection with a Minneapolis shooting. KSTP reported the move Tuesday:

The case gives Ellison another chance to present himself as a defender of state authority. It also gives Republicans fresh evidence for their claim that he spends too much time fighting the Trump administration.

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The Minnesota Secretary of State lists Ellison and Schutz as the major-party nominees for the November 3 general election.

Neither man faced meaningful primary competition, so voters have had weeks to view this as a direct two-man contest. The latest movement came after both candidates were already established on the ballot.

The official filing record shows Schutz entered the race as the Republican candidate on May 29 and Ellison filed as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor candidate on June 1. Their names now sit side by side in the statewide attorney-general contest.

That timing matters because the tie is not a snapshot taken before voters knew who would survive a crowded primary. The matchup was settled, the candidates were known and Ellison still lost eight points of separation.

One poll is still one poll, and 15% undecided means the race can move again. Nobody should confuse a tie in August with a result in November.

But an eight-point lead disappearing in two weeks is a real warning flare.

For the first time in this campaign, the Republican challenger is not chasing a theoretical path. He has an even race.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

 

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