There’s a new Marquette Law School poll just out and, like always, there’s lots of good stuff in there. Let’s check it out.
Still a dead heat. The race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump remains, as expected, neck and neck. Trump has a two point lead which is the same as what he had in November. The February MU poll had them dead even. The last two elections have been decided by just 20,000 votes. No reason to expect this year will be any different.
Misleading numbers on enthusiasm. Trump has a big lead in enthusiasm with 18% more of his voters saying they’re pumped to vote for him. I think what gets lost in that is that, while Biden voters are luke warm about him, they’re fired up to vote against Trump. My guess is that the level of enthusiasm is the same, it’s just all about strong feelings for or against Trump.
RFK hurts Trump. Poll master Charles Franklin says that it’s now pretty clear that Kennedy takes more votes from Trump. “Our polling both here in the state and our national polling has been quite consistent in showing … that Kennedy is taking a few percentage points more from Republican voters than from Democratic voters,” he said. In the MU poll RFK takes 13% from Republicans and 8% from Democrats. But the other third party candidates, Jill Stein and Cornel West, take more from Democrats. So, when all third party candidates are accounted for it’s pretty much a wash.
Baldwin has a lead. Tammy Baldwin’s lead over Eric Hovde is just beyond the margin of error at 52% to 47%, That seems about right to me. I would expect her to run some tens of thousands of votes ahead of Biden. She’s an excellent politician, getting all over the state, taking the strategic conservative position now and then (she supports delisting the gray wolf) and she should be helped by the abortion issue.
Dems and GOP live on different planets. Border security was a big issue for 37% of Republicans and only 1% of Democrats. It ranked second overall for voters as a whole, coming in at 21%. The top issue for all voters was the economy at 33%.
Republicans better aligned. Republican voters’ top three issues match those of all voters: the economy, immigration and abortion. Democrats’ top three are abortion, the economy and Medicare/Social Security. It’s a little more evidence that Democrats’ priorities don’t match up so well with the concerns of the American public overall.
How much will abortion matter? Abortion is listed as the top issue by only 13% of voters and only 5% of independents. It’s a big issue for Democrats, but they’re already voting for Biden and Baldwin. But here’s the thing. There were similar numbers going into the midterms in 2022 and abortion turned out to be a huge boon for the Dems. I’d still look for the issue to help Team Blue, but there’s reason to be unsure of that, especially now since the issue has been resolved in Wisconsin.
Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos 