Actually, in Minnesota Al Franken is beating Norm Coleman in two recent polls. While both polls are within the margin of error, this does indicate a statistical dead heat. It is unusual for a sitting Senator to be tied against his strongest challenger.
MN is unsual in that this Norm's opponent may likely be decided at June's state DFL convention. So right now, its a delegate race. So as to whether Norm will face Al or Mike Ciresi, it will probably be Al. Al is drawing 100-500 for his events while Mike is drawing 20-50 from all I can gather. Al is running a grassroots campaign while Mike appears to be donating to his campaign to keep it running. Initially, $500K in December and now $2M.
Furthermore and is fairly widely known, Al is beating Norm in fundraising. It is also almost unheard of for a challenger to outraise a sitting Senator.
So in conclusion, no, Norm's chances do not look very good. I've been covering and analyzing this race in detail over at:
http://www.mnblue.com
I'd say New Mexico leans Democratic more than just barely; Tom Udall not only outraised Pearce and Wilson combined in the fourth quarter last year, he also polled 20 points ahead of both in the last round of polls (admittedly two months ago)
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