The latest Marquette poll is out and it’s a lesson in why we shouldn’t take polls too seriously until after Labor Day.
The reason is that things are happening too fast. We need to settle in for a few weeks before any polling numbers mean much. The trouble with this latest poll is that it was taken just before Kamala Harris named Tim Walz as her running mate. The Minnesota Governor is well known in the western Wisconsin media market and his profile should play well in the rest of the state. (It came out the other day that he had been arrested for OWI in the 1990’s. Talk about relatable!)
So, the good news in the poll for Harris probably doesn’t reflect just how good it really is. She’s in a dead heat with Trump in Wisconsin, leading him by a meaningless 50-49 among likely voters. (The margin of error is 4.8%.) But if the poll had been taken after the Walz announcement it’s fair to assume she might have had a more significant lead, though still certainly not a large one.
The same goes for the good news for Harris on the enthusiasm gap. When it was Trump v. Biden, Trump enjoyed a 22-point lead in the enthusiasm of his voters. Fully 61% of Trump voters were chomping at the bit to vote for him while only 39% of Biden voters were jazzed about Joe. Harris has that down to only a 5% gap with 47% saving they’re excited to support her while enthusiasm for Trump has sunk to 52%. But, again, if the poll had been taken with Walz in the mix the numbers would have likely been even better for Harris.
And now, of course, come the attacks on Walz. J.D. Vance, who valiantly wrote press releases during his six months in Afghanistan, and Donald Turmp, who dodged the draft during Vietnam, are criticizing Walz for — after 24 years in the service — retiring a full 10 months before his unit was deployed overseas. Anyway, as bogus as that attack is, it will probably have some effect. My point being that even a poll taken days after Walz joined the ticket would probably be different from one taken a couple weeks later.
Still, there are a couple of things from the poll that stand up. First, Harris is supported by 92% of Democrats. That’s about twice the percentage that felt the same way about Biden. It’s a reflection of both relief that Biden has stepped aside and Harris’ success in reintroducing herself to skeptical Democrats — including this one.
And Tammy Baldwin continues to enjoy a comfortable lead over Eric Hovde. She’s up by seven points — 53% to 46% — and that’s slightly better than the five point lead she’s enjoyed ever since Hovde got in the race. The fact that those numbers are so stable suggests that Hovde can’t find a way to get at Baldwin.
So being poll-skeptical is the right approach right now, especially with the Democratic convention in the offing. Let’s see how things look a couple weeks after Labor Day.
Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos 
“as bogus as that attack is“
Bogus? Let’s toss it over to the retired Command Sergeants Major of the Minnesota National Guard and see how “bogus” they think it is: The Truth About Tim Walz
MONEY QUOTE: “WHEN THE NATION CALLED, HE QUIT. HE FAILED to complete the United States Army Sergeants Major Academy. HE FAILED to serve for two years following completion of the academy, which he dropped out of. HE FAILED to serve two years after the conditional promotion to Command Sergeant Major. HE FAILED to fulfill the full six years of the enlistment he signed on September 18th, 2001. HE FAILED his country. HE FAILED his state. HE FAILED the Minnesota Army National Guard, the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion, AND HIS FELLOW SOLDIERS. And HE FAILED to lead by example. SHAMEFUL.”
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A credible and conservative news outlet, the Wall Street Journal, concluded: There are plenty of reasons to criticize Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, and we’ve told you about several. But the charges leveled so far about his military service look like “thin gruel,” as our friends at the New York Sun put it.
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Thanks for posting my comment, Dave.
And it may well turn out that both you, and the WSJ, are right; still (in my best Detective Columbo voice) “just one more thing.”
Walz now, at long last, claims he MISSPOKE.
Funniest thing; whenever I hear that reference, I recall HRC getting questioned, at long last, about her claim of a 1996 landing in Bosnia under SNIPER FIRE (“we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”) shortly AFTER damning video evidence emerged showing quite the contrary.
HRC only fessed up (and pretty damned weakly, IMO) after The Rest Of The Story came to light; think anything more will surface about Walz?
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ERRATUM: bolds/caps/italics mine throughout
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This comment is about the article you posted (in News Feed from New York Times columnist Pamela Paul). Of course Pamela Paul doesn’t speak for everyone and knows it, but I just wanted say how far she is in thinking from this 61 year old female: I think we can have both, the best candidate AND have it be a woman. I don’t see them as being exclusive, even in this case with Kamala. I had a huge emotional reaction to her nomination and her first campaign speech with Walz and actually said out loud to myself that I might see a female president. That my granddaughters might grow up knowing a female president. That is HUGE! I don’t know why Pamela feels the need to play that down. Identities AND representation matters. You can’t be what you don’t see.
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