Senator Al Franken (D, Minnesota) is in more trouble than the Democrats want to admit.

I do not say, Al Franken will be beaten next year.  I do say, Al Franken can be beaten next year. He is not as invulnerable as apparently everybody else thought that he was:

Franken’s seat currently sits on the ‘watch list’ of D.C. prognosticators Charlie Cook and Larry Sabato – both identifying the race as a ‘likely’ hold for Franken, with the caveat that the race may yet become competitive.

Such caution seems validated in light of a new St. Cloud State University poll that was released on Wednesday, which shows Franken receiving a job approval rating of just 39 percent among his constituents – 18 points behind the state’s senior delegation member Amy Klobuchar at 57 percent.

Fifty-one percent of Gopher State residents rated Franken’s job performance negatively.

That’s a poll of adults – which, contra that article, is not actually great news for Franken.  Adult voters tend, by and large, to skew a bit more Democratic than likely voters*.  Mind you, more polling is needed.

Anyway, more here and here and here.  Al Franken’s advantage is that he’s an incumbent; his disadvantages are that he’s a Democratic incumbent who is frankly not very nice and certainly not too energetic.  After Franken won in what can be charitably described as ‘extremely suspicious circumstances that reek of election fraud and endemic corruption**,’ the man walked into the Senate chamber in 2009 and then did… nothing.  Except, of course, for vote for Obamacare… and while I’m sure that it seemed a good idea at the time, well, things change.

As I said: Al Franken is not yet beaten.  But he can be.

Moe Lane

*Don’t ever rely on that rule of thumb, though.

**Yes, that was the charitable description.  The uncharitable one is considerably more profane, not to mention accusatory.