On Larry King Live a few moments ago, former Navy SEAL, professional wrestler, and Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura announced that he would NOT enter the already-competitive race between incumbent Norm Coleman and Al Franken.

Ventura's explanation consisted mostly of personal factors - he didn't want to change his lifestyle, and didn't want his children "attacked" like he claims they were when he was governor.

And after plenty of tease and run-up before his announcement, Ventura also mentioned a yet-published poll conducted by the Minneapolis ABC affiliate that he claimed puts him in 2nd place, above Franken. Anyone seen the poll?

Update [2008-7-14 21:32:8 by Josh Orton]: As they note over at MN Campaign Report, Rasmussen now has Franken up - continuing the pattern of erratic numbers in the race.

Interviewed on CNN's Larry King Live, Jesse Ventura announced that he would not jump in the Minnesota Senate race.

In a theatrical performance, Ventura listed all the reasons he was leaning against running before announcing his decision. He said that he had just gotten word of a new ABC poll that had him second, in front of Al Franken: it is incredible to him that Democrats are screwing up when they should be winning and that they are trailing an independent candidate who hasn't even declared his candidacy yet. He added that politics was now too dirty for him to risk getting into that again and he was too worried about putting his kids through the same ordeal they went through a decade ago.

More details here. .

Well, after a few days of speculation, it sounds like we'll have an answer tonight:

Former Minnesota Governor and professional wrestler Jesse Ventura is expected to announce Monday night on CNN's Larry King Live whether he'll run for his state's U.S. Senate seat. Ventura's deadline to file to run for the senate is Tuesday.
...
Ventura ran for governor of Minnesota as an Independent in 1998, winning a three way race. Coleman was the Republican candidate in that race, losing to Ventura by about 50,000 votes. After what many people in Minnesota describe as a difficult four years in office, Ventura decided not to run for re-election.

Larry King starts at 9PM Eastern time on CNN.

How would the race change? Let's look at the last SUSA poll that looked at both the 2-way and hypothetical 3-way race with Ventura included (6/10-13, 609RVs):

Candidate
Franken	40
Coleman	52
Including Ventura:
Franken	31
Coleman	41
Ventura	23

Don't count Franken out yet. Sorting through the crosstabs, it looks like Ventura pulls a bunch of independent men from Coleman. If Obama's voter registration efforts work they way they should, a bunch of new Dems will bring us back in the running...

Update [2008-7-14 12:55:43 by Josh Orton]: I should add that I'm not sure Ventura would go on Larry King to announce that he's not running - that could be done with a quick statement. I bet he's in.

Update [2008-7-14 13:34:25 by Josh Orton]: Down in the comments, Dracomicron points out a more recent Rass poll with the hypothetical 3-way:

...Rasmussen says that, in a 2-way race, it's currently 48% Coleman to 45% Franken, which seems odd, considering that Franken was down by 12% in that SUSA you mentioned... though Franken's new ad might have done him some good, I suppose.

In the three way race, with 39% Coleman, 32% Franken and 24% Ventura according to Rasmussen, I predict the only one going downwards is Coleman, because Ventura will beat on him mercilessly for both political dislike of incumbancy and personal dislike of Coleman (who insulted him at the '98 State Fair). I think Franken will hold onto his Democrats.

Over the 4th of July weekend a big story exploded from Washington DC, a US Senator was found in a basement suffering from abuse and neglect.

Arrggh, don't know what's going on with the weird spacing issues - Todd

Two new Rasmussen Reports surveys out today show Barack Obama performing extremely well in Minnesota and Oregon with our senate hopefuls slightly behind, in need of some of that Obama down-ticket love.

In Minnesota, Obama is just crushing McCain, although notably has gotten no post-primary bounce in the state. They've been loving him for a while.

Candidate	June	May	April
Obama	52	53	52
McCain	39	38	38

This is a far cry from 2004 when John Kerry beat George Bush by just 3 points.

As for the senate race, despite his recent troubles, Al Franken is hanging in there in his tight race against Norm Coleman.

Candidate	June	May	April
Coleman	48	47	50
Franken	45	45	43

No post-DFL endorsement bounce for Franken but no post-controversy free-fall either. Glad to see Coleman below 50%. There is some danger here for Franken, though, in the form of Jesse Ventura who has threatened to get into the race (the deadline for doing so is July 15.) According to this poll, despite a 62% unfavorable rating, Jesse Ventura would still draw 24% of the vote, handing Coleman a 7 point victory. Franken showed that he has the rank and file of the DFL party behind him when he received their endorsement on the first ballot but there is clearly still some real anxiety about his candidacy. The good news is that there is no sign of any erosion of support in these poll numbers, so hopefully Franken can restore confidence in his candidacy and shake any intentions another Democrat or even Ventura might have toward jumping into the race. If Franken can unite the anti-Coleman forces behind him as the standard bearer, he just might be unstoppable.

In Oregon, things are looking good for Obama as well, but, oddly, if anything, he has seen a post-primary dip in support.

Candidate	June	May	April
Obama	46	52	48
McCain	38	38	42

On some level, this 6 point drop makes sense, since last month's poll was taken in the midst of the primary campaign in Oregon. The good news is that McCain remains stuck at 38% and, as for the volatility of the numbers, there's actually more consistency than there appears.

McCain's support remains stalled at the same level this month as in May. In fact, he has stayed between the 38% and 42% level of support in four Oregon polls conducted this year. With the exception of last month's poll, Obama's support has stayed in the 46% to 49% range.

Also, it bears mentioning, that in 2004, John Kerry beat George Bush by a paltry 4%.

In the Oregon senate race, Democratic candidate Jeff Merkley is seeing a post-primary victory drop in support as well, contrary to other polls showing him shoring up support against Smith in the wake of his primary victory against Steve Novick.

Candidate	June	May	April
Smith	47	45	47
Merkley	38	42	34

The good news is that Smith is still under 50% and Merkley has just barely begun to introduce himself to people in the general election. A full 20% of respondents didn't know enough about Merkley to have an opinion of him. There is still great room for growth for Merkley.

Looking at just the presidential numbers in these states, I think it's pretty clear what we're seeing here: what were swing states in 2004 are now solid blue in 2008. Which means we have a whole new batch of swing states:

The Obama campaign names a few more state directors today: Buffy Wicks in Missouri; Ray Rivera in Colorado; and Mitch Stewart in Virginia.

According to http://www.MNpublius.com Al Franken won on the first ballot with 62% of the vote, more on this as it comes in I am watching live on TheUptake.com

Al Franken is now speaking Live watch it at TheUptake.com, he is accepting victory!

Last month, a lot of folks became worried when they saw that freshman Republican Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota had jumped to a 7-point lead over his Democratic challenger Al Franken. One month later, however, a survey from the same pollster that Coleman moving upward and Franken moving downward shows a statistically tied race. Here's Rasmussen Reports:

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in Minnesota shows Senator Norm Coleman (R) attracting 47% of the vote while challenger Al Franken earns 45% support.

A month ago, Coleman was ahead 50% to 43%. Rasmussen Reports has polled this race five times and Coleman has had at least a modest edge four times (including the last three). However, the Senator has reached the 50% level of support just once in those five polls. Any incumbent who polls below 50% is generally considered vulnerable.

[...]

Coleman earns 91% support from Republican voters while Franken gets the vote from 76% of Democrats. Those figures are little changed from a month ago. However, Coleman's lead among unaffiliated voters--down to nine percentage points--has been cut in half over the past month. Franken benefits from the fact that there are more Democrats than Republicans in Minnesota.

There's a lot in these numbers that should have the GOP worried. To begin, Franken has not yet seen the Democratic base coalesce around him -- something that he has a relatively long time to accomplish before election day.

But more fundamentally, if the Coleman isn't able to take a lead and hold it at a time when Franken has sustained a whole lot of hits in the media, is he ever going to be able to? Had some of the stories that the right wing has trumpeted in recent weeks come up for the first time in the fall rather than in the spring, it might have been difficult for Franken to rebound. However, at least according to Rasmussen polling, Franken is already back well within striking distance.

There remains a whole lot of work to be done in this race. But at this point, with Franken still within the margin of error of Coleman, the Republicans can't be too pleased.

So with less than half a year to go, it's time for another look at all the 2008 Senate races.  There are 35 seats up for election because of a scenario in Wyoming and Mississippi where both seats are up, due to the passing of Craig Thomas and the resignation of Trent Lott, respectively.  Now obviously, quite a few of the races are considered "safe" for the incumbent.  So I'll rank these in terms of tiers.  The top tier will be the races where the party holding the seat has a real shot of switching.  The second tier are races that could become top tier races, but are not at this point.  Tier III are ones where a major event would need to happen for the seat to come into play.  And the safe seats?  Well, Mike Gravel has a better shot at winning the presidency than those incumbents have of losing their races.

Follow me below the fold for all the races.  This is meant to be a primer for both newcomers and political junkies alike, so some of the information may seem repetitive for you junkies out there.  Also see my previous March diary to see what things have changed since my last update.