In the face of a narrowing presidential race and some Senate races looking better for Republicans, Democrats believe a suburban Minnesota district has swung strongly in their favor, representing the kind of dramatic shift they'd need to make serious gains in the House.
State Sen. Terri Bonoff leads GOP Rep. Erik Paulsen 40 percent to 38 percent in a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee poll of the 3rd District. Bonoff's lead is well within the poll's 5.2 percent margin of error. The DCCC's Targeting and Analytics Department surveyed 353 likely general election voters via live caller on Sept. 12. Twenty-two percent were undecided.
Minnesota's 3rd District is a seat that Democrats are hoping Donald Trump will help them put in play. Trump's candidacy helped the DCCC convince Bonoff to get in the race after unsuccessfully courting her for several cycles.
The polling memo says Bonoff took the lead just a week after a DCCC ad linking Paulsen to Trump went on the air. But the committee is not releasing prior polling to show where Bonoff started.
The Bonoff campaign released its own memo on a late-June internal poll that did not include the initial match-up numbers between Bonoff and Paulsen. The poll, conducted by Victoria Research and Consulting, gave Democrats a 9-point advantage on the generic congressional ballot.
A more recent poll, conducted for the conservative American Action Network in early August by the Tarrance Group, showed Paulsen leading Bonoff 57 percent to 31 percent, with 12 percent of registered voters undecided.
The DCCC's poll represents a huge swing from that Republican poll in just a month.
"There's still time for House races to develop and for Democrats to make significant gains," said Roll Call Elections Editor Nathan Gonzales. "But it's unlikely that Paulsen dropped 15 or more points after one week of television ads.
"If this poll is accurate, and the Trump argument is that effective against an incumbent like Paulsen, Democrats will experience a November wave that makes 2006 look like a ripple," he added.
Netting the 30 seats necessary to win a House majority would require Democrats to flip suburban red districts like this one, which the Rothenberg & Gonzales Political Report/Roll Call rates a Republican Favored contest.
President Barack Obama won this highly educated seat by 4 points in 2008 and by 1 point in 2012, but Paulsen easily carried the district by 16 points in that last presidential cycle.
But with Trump at the top of the ticket, Democrats argue this isn't a normal election.
Paulsen's numbers, the DCCC poll memo argues, is evidence that "the Republican presidential nominee is sinking Republicans like Paulsen down the ballot." Hillary Clinton leads Trump by double digits, with more than 60 percent of voters in the district having an unfavorable view of Trump.
But Paulsen still has a healthy cash-on-hand advantage over Bonoff. The congressman ended the pre-primary reporting period on July 20 with $3.2 million in the bank to Bonoff's $571,000.
Both candidates debuted their first ads this week. Paulsen released one positive spot and one attack on Bonoff for voting for tax increases. Bonoff's ad is a mostly positive biographical spot that doesn't mention Paulsen. But she concludes by saying, "We need to step up and stand up to Donald Trump."
