Tom Emmer is losing the governor's race. Of the 12 polls released since June, only one showed the Republican gubernatorial nominee with a lead - and that was a statistically meaningless one-point edge.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty's political action committee, Freedom First, is pulling in dollars from big-time outstate and Minnesota donors and shelling the cash out to mostly Republican's running for office in Iowa.

DFL gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton met with about 20 DFL House caucus members at the Minneapolis Club just before Labor Day weekend. Many in the group, which included a number of House DFL rank-and-file supporters of vanquished DFL endorsee Margaret Anderson Kelliher, had yet to sit down with their party's standard-bearer, and treated the event like a meet-and-greet.

Room 15 in the Minnesota state Capitol was packed wall-to-wall with DFL activists and lawmakers the day after the primary election. They had gathered to proclaim their unity in supporting the gubernatorial bid of former U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton, who squeaked past House Speaker and DFL endorsee Margaret Anderson Kelliher by a mere 7,000 votes.

One day after Mark Dayton triumphed in an extraordinarily close gubernatorial primary contest, DFLers gathered at the Capitol to proclaim unity heading into the November general election. The former U.S. Senator was joined by his top two rivals for the Democratic nomination, House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher and former House Minority Leader Matt Entenza.

For the past 40 years, irrespective of larger political currents, the Minnesota DFL has owned the office of state attorney general. Beginning in the middle of the first Nixon administration, the post has been occupied by an uninterrupted quartet of Democrats: Warren Spannaus (1971-82), Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III (1983-98), Mike Hatch (1999-2006), and Hatch protégé Lori Swanson (2007-present).

Morrison County Sheriff Michel Wetzel was surprised to get a letter from the Republican Party of Minnesota at his office. He was even more surprised when he saw what they wanted: a slew of law enforcement records on one of the party’s own elected members, state Sen. Paul Koering of Fort Ripley.

Among the many reasons the DFL party establishment wants Margaret Anderson Kelliher to triumph in both next month’s primary and in the November general election is to finally halt the notorious string of ballot box failures wrought by its endorsed candidates for governor. The last time the DFL endorsement process lined up behind a gubernatorial winner was in the case of Rudy Perpich back in 1986. But that hardly counts, because Perpich was the incumbent at the time, a distinction he earned only after defeating the previous DFL endorsee, Warren Spannaus, in the 1982 primary.

In the days leading up to the DFL state convention in Duluth, the widespread belief was that Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak had established crucial momentum. Of course, that’s not exactly how it played out. Kelliher led on all six ballots and exited the convention center with the party’s backing. Rybak went back to Minneapolis City Hall. In the end, organization trumped charisma. Kelliher earned the party’s nod through months of meticulous planning, a well-executed convention floor plan, loyal support from her fellow House members and a final boost from organized labor.

DFL gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton has the support of two members of the DFL establishment in former state Attorney General Mike Hatch and former Minnesota Congressman Bill Luther.