An election without polls?

With a week remaining it's appearing more and more likely that no poll will be released in the 5th congressional district race. Polls can either help or hurt the process depending on their accuracy. A poll showing Tammy Lee ahead of Alan Fine for example would have a huge impact, while a poll showing Keith Ellison at 62% (say Star Tribune poll) would effectively end the race. I have a good feel about where the race is, but that only gets me within 10-15% of reality. My gut tells me as of today Ellison is around 45% Tammy Lee is around 25% Alan Fine is around 15% Jay Pond is under 5%. A poll indicating this information would put the momentum into the Tammy Lee campaign allowing a few more Democrats to leave Ellison, allowing any Republican that puts a priority on beating Ellison to leave Fine, and motivating the undecided and traditional non voters to vote Tammy Lee giving her the victory.

Without the poll the election itself may very well act as the initial poll and provide the above mentioned results. Unfortunately without polls people will use past history to assume Ellison is at 60% and they have no reason to get informed on this race. As I mentioned last week those coming to this blog through google searches nationwide are looking for a poll in this race as they know Ellison is a flawed candidate and don't have the confidence he will win, what is otherwise a safe Democrat seat.

Tammy Lee recently has gotten some good coverage as the #1 challenger to the flawed Ellison, and hopefully people see that as they would a poll, but I'd really like to see the media (the honest media anyways) conduct a poll on this race.