Bad game plan? Poll shows Coach Walz could be headed for a home-state loss

Perhaps playing Madden on Twitch with AOC isn’t the best campaign strategy after all, even for a football cosplayer like the #2 on the Democratic ticket.That’s a takeaway from new polling of Minnesota, which shows Gov.Tim Walz’s ticket may be on the verge of an improbable outcome in the vice presidential pick’s home state, with the first potential loss for Democrats since 1972’s Richard Nixon landslide over the “acid, abortion, and amnesty” campaign of the doomed George McGovern. Roughly 24 hours after the former assistant football coach came under fire for his malapropistic mangling of a basic gridiron term by saying the lefty congresswoman from the Bronx could “run a mean Pick 6” during a stultifying 0-0 tie between the two pols (who may or may not have run every play to the left), a survey from the Minnesota Post shows Walz and Kamala Harris apparently in danger of a fatal interception in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.The poll of 1,734 likely voters, conducted by Embold Research between Oct.

16 and Oct.22, shows Harris and Walz ahead of Donald Trump and JD Vance by fewer than 3 points, 47.7% to 45.1%. Independents are breaking for Trump, 36% to 27% for Harris in the October poll.The 2.6 point spread is a reduction from the September survey, which showed a 4.2 point race, as if the pollsters asked the vandals who painted “Walz Failed” on the Governor’s Mansion this month who they would vote for.Harris has lost 1.1% support month over month, while Trump has picked up 0.5%, and “other” candidates have moved from 3.6% to 4.7% support.Walz’s inclusion on the ticket isn’t striking these upper Midwestern voters as Minnesota Nice, given his middling approval numbers.

46.7% of those polled disapprove of him, while 48.9% say they still approve of their state’s chief executive as he looks for a better job on the taxpayer dime.Walz’s counterpart JD Vance has cut his unfavorability in half since the September poll, with the sole vice preside...