Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman (R) knows he is high on the Democrats’ wish list this cycle and the first Rasmussen Reports Senate poll for Election 2008 shows the incumbent starting off below the 50% level of support. A survey of 500 Likely Voters finds Coleman leading Al Franken (D) 46% to 36% with 10% saying they’d vote for a third party option.

Generally speaking, incumbents who poll below 50% are considered potentially vulnerable.

Coleman is a freshman Senator who won his seat in 2002 by just two percentage points. Coleman replaced Paul Wellstone (D) in the Senate. Wellstone died in a plane crash near the end of the 2002 election and was replaced on the ballot by former Vice President Walter Mondale. Coleman was recruited heavily by the Bush team in 2002 but has distanced himself from the Administration lately.

Franken is known as a Saturday Night Live comedian and, more recently, Air America talk show host. He’s not the only Democrat with dreams of replacing Coleman in the Senate, but he would certainly qualify as one of the more interesting candidates in 2008.

Coleman is viewed favorably by 51% of Minnesota voters and unfavorably by 42%. The numbers for Franken are weaker—39% favorable and 46% unfavorable. President Bush earns approval from just 36% of voters in a state that he came close to winning in both 2000 and 2004. Minnesota has voted for a Democratic Presidential candidate in eight straight elections, longer than any other state in the union. Minnesota was the only state to vote for Democrat Walter Mondale in Ronald Reagan’s 1984 re-election landslide.

Coleman leads Franken by 14 points among men and 5 points among women. He has a slight edge among unaffiliated voters but trails among voters under 30.

This telephone survey of 500 Likely Voters was conducted March 7, 2007. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.