Back in 2006, I followed the polls in the 6th District closely. With a KSTP/Survey USA poll out now, I thought I’d do some quick and dirty comparisons.

The new poll (crosstabs here) has Tink “up” 47% to 44%, which is a statistical tie. The party ID in this poll was 40% Republican, 32% Democrat, and 25% Independent.

Now, here is a summary of all the CD6 polls from 2006, along with party affiliation from those polls.

The 40% Republican is not out of line with what was seen in 2006. Neither is the 32% Democrat, though that may be a tick lower than 2006. The Independent numbers were all over the map in 2006, but the 25% number this year is interesting. That is higher than what the SurveyUSA polls found in 2006.

I don’t think Bob Anderson has near the appeal that John Binkowski had, especially with younger voters, so I don’t see him pulling a lot of votes from the DFL candidate. Put another way, I think Binkowski’s presence in the race helped Bachmann more than Anderson will help this time around.

Bottom line, I don’t think you can dismiss this poll simply by claiming the demographics are out of whack.

Now, I’m a polls-as-trend kind of guy, but I haven’t been following the polls this time around to see how this poll fits in with others. I will say I don’t think it’s wise to point to one poll at one moment in time and say, yup, that’s how things are.

You’ll see in 2006 that the polls were close around the time of the whole Mark Foley mess. (That MN Poll was laughable.) But, in an awful year, Bachmann pulled away at the end. So, while this poll is a bit of a warning bell, there’s no need yet for red lights and blaring klaxons.

The anti-American thing is going to hurt, but it’s a conservative district and Tink and Anderson running as Anti-Bachmanns shouldn’t be enough to woo conservative voters. McCain should have some appeal to these Independents, and I think he’ll win this district, and I still think the odds are good that voters in the 6th District who will vote for McCain won’t split their vote and vote against Bachmann.