Minnesota Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment Leads

A ballot measure to enact a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in Minnesota is narrowly leading 49%-47% according to a new poll released by the Minnesota Star-Tribune today. The margin of error of the poll is ±3.5 percentage points, which demonstrates that the fight is very very close, with both results basically equally likely.

What's more interesting to me than the top line numbers are the internals of the poll:

If the election were held today, would you vote:

• "YES", in favor of the amendment
• "NO", against the amendment

	"YES"	"NO"	UNDECIDED
STATE	49%	47%	4%
REGION	"YES"	"NO"	UNDECIDED
Hennepin/Ramsey	39%	58%	3%
Metro Suburbs	59%	37%	4%
Rochester/Southeast	53%	42%	5%
Southwest Minnesota	55%	42%	3%
Northwest Minnesota	48%	47%	5%
Duluth/Northeast	44%	54%	2%
SEX	"YES"	"NO"	UNDECIDED
Men	57%	39%	4%
Women	40%	56%	4%
AGE	"YES"	"NO"	UNDECIDED
18-34	37%	57%	6%
35-49	51%	47%	2%
50-64	47%	49%	4%
65+	55%	41%	4%
INCOME	"YES"	"NO"	UNDECIDED
<$50,000	49%	48%	3%
$50,000+	49%	49%	2%
PARTY ID	"YES"	"NO"	UNDECIDED
Democrat	24%	73%	3%
Republican	78%	22%	-
Independent	55%	38%	7%

The first question to ask is "what the heck is going on in the suburbs of Minneapolis?" They support the amendment 59% to 37%? It's also interesting to note that men and women are diametrically opposite positions on the amendment, which would imply that the campaign needs to work harder to explain to women that same-sex marriage will have absolutely no impact on their lives and really the point of the amendment is to send an anti-gay message to people in and out of the state. There also seems to be some more work done to convince Democrats that they should  be more strongly opposed to the amendment, since Republicans seem more energized in favor (zero percent undecided Republicans, really?!). Also, the campaign should target Independents, because typically they align more with Democrats than Republicans on social issues.

The problem is that the conventional wisdom is that the race is this close in say a month, then the forces of bigotry will win, because most undecided voters (and even some voters loath to appear bigoted to the pollster asking the question who may have lied and said they oppose the amendment) will go into the booth and vote to defend their heterosexual privilege by voting yes on the constitutional amendment.

Of course, Minnesota already has a statute declaring same-sex marriage illegal, so the only practical impact of passing the amendment will be to force marriage equality supporters to have to go to the ballot sometime in the future to repeal the amendment, unless a court declares that public referendums on the fundamental right to marry of minorities violates the United States constitution (which I believe).