Republican Rep. Erik Paulsen holds a sizable lead over Third District challenger Terri Bonoff, according to a news poll released Oct. 17. In a KSTP/SurveyUSA poll, Paulsen leads Bonoff 49 percent to 38 percent, while 13 percent remain undecided.

A focus of Bonoff's campaign has been to tie Paulsen to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. In her first ad of 2016, Bonoff didn't mention her opponent but did go after Trump. The poll released Monday indicates the effort to tie Trump to Paulsen has not worked so far.

"Democrats have not been successful in equating Paulsen with Trump," said Carleton College political science professor Steven Schier.

"It's clear that 3rd District voters are making a big distinction between those two people." In the same poll, Trump trails Hillary Clinton among "likely voters" in the 3rd District by 13 points.



"This poll was conducted during a time when the national press was saying there's a meltdown of the Trump campaign," Schier added. "But what we see in this poll is there's no meltdown of the Paulsen campaign."



Bonoff and Paulsen will participate in their second debate on Sunday, Oct. 30 at 6:30 p.m., live on KSTP.