Craig Gilbert

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

As Gov. Scott Walker struggles to win a third term, he’s facing cracks in his Republican coalition that weren’t there four years ago, an analysis of Wisconsin polling shows.

Walker’s support is as strong as ever from the “base” — conservative and partisan Republicans.

But it has declined among the party’s more moderate and independent voters.

Walker’s support is especially soft with one small but key group of GOP voters – Republicans who have real qualms about President Donald Trump. Compared to other Republicans, these voters are backing GOP candidates by smaller margins this fall, said Marquette Law School pollster Charles Franklin.

They’re also less enthusiastic about turning out in November, said Franklin, who did a detailed analysis of the GOP vote for this story based on his statewide polling in August and September.

Franklin looked at GOP voters in Wisconsin broadly defined – a group that includes registered voters who identify as Republicans, as well as independents who lean toward the GOP. Together, these Republican partisans and “leaners” represent about 45% of the state’s electorate.

Some takeaways:

Republican voters aren’t as unified in their support of Trump and Walker as Democrats are in their opposition.

Republican voters aren’t as unified behind Walker as they were in 2014.

While most Republican voters approve of Trump, their enthusiasm ranges widely. And a sizable minority (about one in five) either disapproves of the president or thinks he has changed the Republican Party for the worse. “One fifth of the party is pretty notably troubled” by Trump, said Franklin.

This last group of Republicans poses a special problem for the GOP in the Nov. 6 election, because it is less united behind its party’s candidates and less motivated to vote.

All these patterns could certainly change in the campaign’s final month. Already this fall, the searing fight over Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court has become an election wild card, inflaming both sides. Republicans hope it unifies and energizes their voters.

But if these patterns hold, they would pose another mid-term headache for Walker, on top of his long-running struggles this year with the state’s most “swingy” and independent voters.

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“The issue for Walker is not just with the ‘pure’ independents, but it is also with independents who lean toward the (Republican) party,” said Franklin. “Both groups are less supportive of him than they were four years ago.”

Franklin’s polling sheds some light on how attitudes toward Trump within the GOP may be contributing to Walker’s deficit in the polls.

Both Trump and Walker get overwhelming support from voters within their party, though Walker’s numbers are a little better. Almost a quarter of GOP voters in Wisconsin give Walker higher job ratings than Trump. Only about 10% give Trump higher ratings than Walker.

Trump’s overall approval rating among Republican voters in Wisconsin averaged 83% in Marquette's last two Wisconsin polls. But that number doesn’t really do justice to the range of opinion about the president within the party. While some of those “approvers” are Trump enthusiasts, others are lukewarm or conflicted.

To get a better picture of that mix, Franklin combined the answers to two questions in his last two polls. One was strength of Trump approval, whether voters “strongly” approve, “somewhat” approve, “somewhat” disapprove or “strongly” disapprove of the president. The other was whether voters think Trump has changed the Republican Party for the better, for the worse or not much either way.

The pollster divided GOP voters into three groups based on their answers, and looked at the role these different Trump factions in the party are playing in the mid-term elections.

Here is what he found:

Hard-core Trump supporters. These Republicans strongly approve of Trump and think he has changed the party for the better. They represent a little more than 40% of all GOP voters (including both partisan Republicans and leaners). They are almost unanimous in their support for GOP candidates. Walker is winning them 93% to 4% over Democrat Tony Evers in Marquette’s polling. Republican Leah Vukmir is winning them 93% to 6% over Democratic incumbent Tammy Baldwin in the U.S. Senate race.

Softer Trump supporters. These Republicans only “somewhat” approve of Trump, or they strongly approve but don’t think Trump has changed the GOP for the better. They represent just under 40% of Republican voters. Walker is winning them by almost the same amount as he’s winning the first group. Vukmir is winning them by a slightly smaller margin. But this group is not as enthusiastic about voting as are the more hard-core Trump supporters in the party.

Republicans troubled by Trump. These Republicans either disapprove of Trump or think he has changed the party for the worse. They represent about 20% of GOP voters. And in two key respects, these voters are different from pro-Trump Republicans in their attitudes toward the mid-term elections.

First, they’re a lot less mobilized. Only about 40% of this group said they were very enthusiastic about voting, compared with almost 60% of softer Trump supporters in the party and almost 80% of hard-core Trump supporters.

Second, they are backing Walker and Vukmir by much smaller margins. Walker is still winning a large majority of these Republicans (68%). But a sizable minority is breaking ranks. Democrat Evers is getting 24% and Libertarian Phil Anderson is getting 7% of this group. Vukmir’s numbers with these Republicans are slightly worse than Walker’s.

The upshot is that Walker is winning the two pro-Trump factions in the party by almost 90 points, but he’s winning the third faction — Republicans troubled by Trump — by only half that margin (a little over 40 points).

The potential impact of this on his overall vote is not huge, but it’s enough to hurt Walker’s prospects in a close race. Since the segment of Republicans troubled by Trump represents roughly 20% of GOP voters and just under 10% of all registered voters, winning them by 40 points instead of 60 or 80 points could depress Walker’s margin by two or three points in a statewide race (the difference between winning by one point and losing by a point or two).

Who are these GOP voters who are soft on Walker and have major qualms about Trump?

Compared with other GOP voters in Wisconsin, they are more moderate, less partisan, more likely to be college-educated and a bit more likely to live in suburban areas, according to the Marquette polling.

That echoes the findings of a recent national study done by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, which divided Republicans into two groups – those “very” favorable to Trump (55% of the GOP) and those only “somewhat” favorable or unfavorable (45%).

Compared to Trump’s core Republican supporters, the second group was less conservative, less partisan and more likely to have a college degree than the first group. It was also younger and higher-income in its mix.

The same national survey found differences in how “Trump Republicans” and “Non-Trump Republicans” stood on numerous issues. The “Non-Trump” Republicans were generally more favorable to the NAFTA trade pact, more worried about a trade war, more pro-immigration and more supportive of the Iran nuclear pact, the Paris climate accords and NATO. These are all positions that distance this group within the GOP from Trump’s “America First” policies, noted Dina Smeltz, a senior fellow of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, who wrote an analysis of the study.

“There is clearly not a monolithic Republican Party,” Smeltz said in an interview.

That is consistent with scores of interviews this reporter has done with GOP voters in Wisconsin over the past year. Many of these Republicans are enthusiastic about Trump. But many others who may on balance approve of Trump have mixed feelings about the president’s views, record, “style” or behavior.

The Democratic Party isn’t monolithic either, of course. But controversial presidents have a way of unifying the opposition party more than their own party. Barack Obama unified Republicans in opposition during his presidency just as Trump has now unified Democrats.

You can see this in Marquette’s polling on Trump in Wisconsin.

Democrats are overwhelmingly and deeply negative about Trump, whether they are “strong” Democrats or not: 86% of partisan Democrats “strongly” disapprove of Trump in Wisconsin, as do almost as many Democratic-leaning independents (81%).

But only 60% of partisan Republicans “strongly” approve of Trump, and that drops to 47% among GOP-leaning independents.

There’s a similar pattern in the election contests for governor and U.S. Senate this year.

In his race against Evers this fall, Walker has nearly universal support among partisan Republicans in Marquette’s August and September polling, leading Evers among this group by 88 points. But that lead drops to 58 points among Republican "leaners," as some shift to Democrat Evers and some to Libertarian Anderson.

Walker has nearly universal support among conservative Republicans, too, leading Evers by the 88 points. But that lead drops to 58 points among GOP moderates. These gaps – between partisans and leaners, and between moderates and more ideological voters – are smaller on the Democratic side.

In short, Democrats of all stripes are largely unified in their opposition to Walker.

And the most partisan and conservative Republicans are unified in support of the governor.

But there are two groups that aren’t delivering for Walker the way they did in his victorious 2014 campaign, according to Marquette's recent polling.

One is “pure” independents (those who don’t lean to either party). In the late summer and early fall of 2014, Walker was winning them by 16 points. Now he’s losing them by 9. This is by definition the “swingiest” part of the electorate, and they have swung more than any other group since 2014.

The second group is Republican leaners (independents who lean toward the GOP). Walker’s share of support from this group is nine points lower (71% compared to 80%) than it was during the same period in 2014.

“The independent leaners may be the group he’d be able to win back by Election Day,” Franklin said of Walker. “But that would still leave him at some peril with pure independents.”

The challenge for Walker in the coming weeks is really doing some of both: cutting his deficit with independents, and bolstering his support with “soft” Republicans — GOP voters who are less partisan, less conservative, troubled by Trump or all of the above.