Poll: Criminal Record Hurts Noem in November

Madville Times readers seem confident that Noem's driving record, court-dodging, and arrest warrants do her nothing but harm; disagreement is mostly over whether the harm to her chances of beating Stephanie Herseth Sandlin are major or minor. The latest Madville Times poll asked, "What effect will Kristi Noem's criminal record have on her standing with South Dakota voters?" My loyal readers, who include a fair number of folks who disagree with me on politics, answered as follows:

Major positive	7 (4%)
Minor positive	2 (1%)
Neutral	27 (14%)
Minor negative	63 (34%)
Major negative	88 (47%)

Votes total: 187

What "major" and "minor" mean remains open to armchair speculation. 10 percentage points in the polls rather than 5? or 2? The difference between victory and defeat? Only November will tell. But these numbers, along with hard commentary from fairer journalists than I, suggest that if Noem's irresponsible driving and court-dodging (not to mention her campaign's ineffective response to the issue) will cost her a significant number of votes.