Unless you carefully unpack the history of the last 30 years of elections in the Dakotas, it has to strike you as bizarre that the Democrats hold five of the six federal offices in those states (3 of 4 Senators, both Representatives). That may change next November, according to a new poll by RasmussenReports. Three-term Senator Byron Dorgan trails Governor John Hoeven by a 22 points, 58%-36%.

30% of North Dakotans favor the health care bill, while 64% oppose it. This makes it unlikely that Dorgan's numbers will improve after he casts at least five tiebreaking votes for the bill.

In a DailyKos/R2K poll done at the beginning of the year, Dorgan thumped Hoeven 57%-35%. Even setting aside questions about methodology and bias, you have to concede that significant movement has occurred. Dorgan has held statewide office since the waning days of the Johnson Administration and was recently one of the most popular senators in the country, so this is a highly significant result.

Interestingly, Dorgan has weak numbers against perennial candidate Duane Sand. He leads 52%-37%. A win is a win, but these are awfully tepid poll numbers against a candidate who has lost three bids for statewide office in the past decade. Speculation is that Hoeven isn't particularly interested in going to DC, but Republicans also hold the Lieutenant Governor, State Treasurer, State Auditor, State Insurance Commissioner, Secretary of State, Attorney General, and Tax Commissioner spots, so in theory finding a credible candidate shouldn't be hard.

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