Craig Gilbert

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

It’s hard to imagine things looking any worse for Donald Trump in the “battleground” state of Wisconsin.

He trails Democrat Hillary Clinton by 15 points among likely voters in a new statewide poll by the Marquette University Law School — 37% to 52%.

“A 15-point margin is ... wow,” said Marquette pollster Charles Franklin, acknowledging the obvious.

The “crossover” support Trump said he’d get from the other party doesn’t exist (only 2% of Wisconsin Democrats support him).

Independents don’t like him (70% view him unfavorably).

Too many of his own party’s voters are stuck on the sidelines (14% of Wisconsin Republicans aren’t backing anyone for president).

Trump is far less popular in this state than the Democratic president he disdains (Barack Obama’s favorability rating is 54% in Wisconsin while Trump’s is 27%).

And he is far less popular here in his own party than the House speaker he has clashed with (Paul Ryan’s favorability rating among GOP voters in Wisconsin is 80% while Trump’s is 54%).

Among registered voters in Wisconsin, Trump has a negative image with 74% of 18 to 29-year-olds; 70% of college grads, 70% of moderates and 69% of women.

Graphic: Clinton's and Trump's standing with Wisconsin voters

Yet Trump has shown no signs of conceding the state. He campaigned in Green Bay last Friday. Running mate Mike Pence was in Waukesha the week before and returns Thursday for visits to La Crosse and Milwaukee.

When Marquette pollster Franklin unveiled his survey Wednesday showing Clinton’s 15-point lead, a member of the audience asked him if it was “all over” in Wisconsin.

“I’m not there,” Franklin replied. “People want a crystal ball ... it’s a bit of hubris to believe whatever we think today is unchangeable, that no events can matter.”

Franklin pointed to the historic ebbs and flows in presidential polling.

“It’s looking more like 2008 right now,” said Franklin, citing an election where Obama won by 14 in Wisconsin and by 7 nationally. “But does it move to 2012, gets tighter everywhere? Does it move to ’04 and gets really, really tight?”

Republican Mitt Romney was down by almost 14 points to Obama in Marquette’s polling in early September 2012 in Wisconsin. Romney closed to within a point in early October, before sliding back and losing the state by seven. In polls like Marquette's, the margins among likely voters tend to be more volatile than results from registered voters (Clinton leads by 10 among the latter group).

The bigger issues for Trump are, one: that he has been unfailingly behind in the Wisconsin polling in this cycle; and two, his numbers have slipped so much nationally amid the chaos and controversy around his campaign since the conventions that almost all the 2016 battlegrounds look problematic right now.

Recent polls have shown Clinton with double-digit leads in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Michigan. That is going to happen when a candidate is lagging in national surveys by an average of 7 or 8 points. In other words, Trump is struggling everywhere, not just here.

But his problems do seem more acute in Wisconsin. It’s fair to wonder whether a tighter national race would put Wisconsin truly in play, given Trump’s track record in this state of consistently poor polling, a decisive April primary defeat and repeated conflicts with members of his own party.

Just last week, Trump picked a fight with Ryan, the state’s most popular Republican politician, who faced a GOP primary Tuesday against a little-known, pro-Trump challenger.

What happened? Ryan won his primary by 68 points. And in Marquette’s new poll — taken in the midst of the Trump-Ryan “rift” last week — the speaker got his best scores in four years of Wisconsin polling. Ryan’s favorability rating, which had hovered in the high 40s since last fall, suddenly spiked to 54% among registered voters.

His biggest gains came from groups that are heavily anti-Trump: moderates (Ryan’s rating rose from 44% favorable in July to 54% in August); independents (from 46% to 57%); Democrats (from 21% to 29%) and women (from 42% to 51%).

At the same time, Trump’s popularity with GOP voters in Wisconsin declined after improving earlier this summer.

Trump can still take some comfort in his opponent’s weakness. He is down only 3 points among independents, who overwhelmingly dislike both candidates.

But Clinton’s public standing, while negative, improved in the latest poll, from an average positive rating of 36% earlier in the year to 43%.

Clinton is also commanding more loyalty from her party’s voters than Trump is from his. She is getting the support of 90% of Wisconsin Democrats. Trump is getting the support of 79% of Wisconsin Republicans.

In Wisconsin (and nationally), Clinton’s convention unified Democrats more than Trump’s convention unified Republicans.

And most of what’s happened since the conventions has made Trump’s task in Wisconsin harder, not easier.

The poll of 805 registered Wisconsin voters was conducted Thursday through Sunday. The full sample had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.6%. The sample for the 683 likely voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 5.0%.

Of those surveyed, 44% identified as Republicans and 47% as Democrats. Those figures included so-called "leaners," those who normally call themselves independents and lean toward a party.