By the standard political barometers, Paul Gazelka should be a runaway favorite to win the Senate District 12 seat. The former state House member took the GOP primary by 14 percentage points in a district that's seemingly firm Republican turf.

The last time around, Senate District 13 in western Minnesota played host to one of the most intense legislative races in recent history. Republicans, DFLers and several independent groups waged an expensive and pitched battle there in 2006 that culminated in the defeat of Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson, DFL-Willmar, by a razor-thin 553 votes.

A late September poll from the Star Tribune found Emmer and Dayton running neck-and-neck in outstate Minnesota with 35 percent apiece, but a mid October KSTP/SurveyUSA poll put Dayton ahead in all regions.

In the 2002 election that followed Minnesota's last round of redistricting, the three seats that comprise Minnesota legislative District 4 - which includes the city of Bemidji, Cass County and parts of Itasca, Beltrami, Hubbard and Crow Wing counties - were swept by Republicans. Some believed the results were a harbinger of reliable GOP dominance in the area.

Minnesota's 1st Congressional District has traditionally served as a bellwether for national political trends. In 1994 Republican Gil Gutknecht rode a surge of Clinton midterm discontent in wresting the seat from Democratic hands. A dozen years later, Tim Walz ousted Gutknecht as Democrats nationwide capitalized on anger at the Bush administration and the Iraq War.

Prior to the 2004 election cycle, Sen. Leo Foley was the only DFLer representing Senate District 47. But that year Democrats took over both House seats, and they have been able to keep hold of all three posts in the suburban district ever since.

In 2004, Jim Carlson took on first-term Republican Rep. Lynn Wardlow in House District 38B. The race was a decidedly uphill battle.

Prior to the 2006 elections, the people of Senate District 56, which covers much of Woodbury and north-central Washington County, had an entirely Republican delegation in St. Paul. But when the votes were counted that year, the district's Republicans - two representatives and one senator -had all been swept out of office, victims of a pro-DFL swing that averaged 11 points in each of the area's three legislative races.

During the past week, the former Tom Emmer for Governor campaign chair and Republican Party of Minnesota consultant was buffeted first by news of a drunk driving arrest and later by the disclosure that he and his wife were underwater on their home mortgage and facing foreclosure.

At a Catholic Charities gathering last fall, Tom Horner and Stephen Imholte began chatting about the looming 2010 governor's race. They knew each other casually from years spent working on Republican campaigns and causes. But as they talked, it also became clear that they shared a growing frustration with the increasingly rightward tilt of the GOP in recent years. Both believed that there was an opening in 2010 for a centrist candidate to exploit the polarization of the two dominant political parties and the resulting gridlock at the Capitol.