Coleman Leads Republican Pack if He Seeks GOP Nod for Governor

Former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, who lost a contentious race to Democrat Al Franken following a vote count that dragged on for months, leads a field of Republicans for the GOP nomination for governor, while no Democrat has emerged as the frontrunner in their match-ups, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll conducted Nov. 10.Coleman has not said whether he will run although the Politics in Minnesota blog says his confidants are pressing him to do so. The governor's chair is being vacated by Republican Tim Pawlenty, who said he would not seek a third term.

Coleman gets 50 percent of the Republican vote in the poll compared to 11 percent for Marty Seifert, the former minority leader of the state House of Representatives. Seifert won the GOP straw poll for the party's nod at its state convention last month and is considered to be the Republican frontrunner without Coleman in the race. Two other candidates share 6 percent of the vote, 7 percent prefer someone else and 26 percent are undecided.

On the Democratic side, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak is tied with former Sen. Mark Dayton at 30 percent each. Dayton defeated the then-incumbent Sen. Ron Grams in 2000 but decided not to seek another term in the face of an uphill battle for re-election. Two other candidates are in single digits, 5 percent prefer someone other than those included in the poll and 20 percent are undecided.