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Interested Parties

From: GBA Strategies Date: August 30, 2012

MN-08: Nolan in the Lead

In a new survey1 of Minnesotas 8th congressional district, Democrat Rick Nolan now leads Republican Congressman Chip Cravaack, 47 44 percent. Even though 86 percent of voters in the district are familiar with Cravaack compared to only 59 percent familiar with Nolan, the Democratic challenger already enjoys the advantage. The fact that Cravaack is trailing a lesser-known challenger shows that he is in serious jeopardy and that Democrats have an excellent chance to reclaim this traditionally Democratic seat in November.
Congressional Vote 60 50 40 30 20 47 44

10
0 Nolan Cravaack

Furthermore, as voters become more familiar with Nolan his advantage grows. In a balanced exercise in which survey respondents were given positive profile information about both candidates, Nolans lead over Cravaack increases to 50 43 percent:
60 50 50 40 30 20 10 0 Nolan Cravaack 43

Rick Nolan was born and raised in the Minnesota Iron Range, and has spent his career fighting for Minnesota families, small businesses, and rural communities. As the owner of a Minnesota saw mill, he knows what it takes to create good-paying jobs, meet a payroll, and balance a budget. Nolan believes we need to restore the middle class. In Congress, he will fight for Minnesota families by working to bring good jobs to Minnesota, protecting Social Security and Medicare, and ending tax breaks for companies that ship American jobs overseas. Chip Cravaack served in the U.S. Navy for twenty-four years, before becoming a commercial airline pilot. He knows that the only way to fix our economy is through the hard work and ingenuity of American workers-not more wasteful government spending and debt. Elected to Congress less than two years ago, he's fighting for Minnesota jobs, by lowering taxes on small business, cutting red tape, voting to repeal Obama's trillion dollar takeover of health care and supporting our miners and steel workers across the Iron Range.

This survey of MN-08 was conducted by GBA Strategies from August 26-27, 2012. It interviewed 400 likely voters for the November elections, on both landlines and cell phones. Results are subject to a margin of error of +/- 4.9 percent at the 95 percent confidence interval.

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