MU Poll: Republican Gov. Scott Walker leads Democratic rivals

Bill Glauber , Molly Beck | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Gov. Scott Walker leads all his Democratic challengers who remain largely unknown to Wisconsin voters, according to Wednesday's Marquette University Law School poll.

While a third of Democratic voters surveyed are still unsure about who they plan to vote for in the Aug. 14 primary, the poll found State Superintendent Tony Evers again received the most support among those who are sure.

The poll also found Walker's job approval rating is higher than his disapproval rating for the first time since October 2014, a month before he won his second term and almost immediately began running an unsuccessful campaign for president. And 52% said the state was heading in the right direction.

In hypothetical matchups, the poll found 48% favored Walker over Evers, who received 44% support. Against former state Rep. Kelda Roys, Walker also led 48% to 40%.

Poll director Charles Franklin said he surveyed all 800 respondents in the two matchups because Evers had led the Democratic pack in a March poll, and because Roys had won a number of straw polls at Democratic gatherings, including at the recent state party convention.

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But Roys received just 2% support among decided voters, up from less than 1% in March, despite the recent support among party activists.

Her showing comes after receiving national attention in recent months for a campaign video that showed her breastfeeding her daughter, but before fundraising powerhouse EMILY's List endorsed Roys' campaign on Wednesday.

Brian Evans, spokesman for Roys, said as Roys "ramps up communications," more support will come her way.

Meanwhile, Evers' campaign manager Maggie Gau argued Democratic voters should coalesce around Evers because candidates "have entered and exited the race, Scott Walker has repeatedly publicly attacked Tony and, yet, Tony continues to lead this field."

A spokesman for Walker declined to comment on the poll results.

Primary race to heat up

Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said it's clear the public is "mostly not attuned to the insider conversation" about the Democratic candidates and that the resources available to each candidate will start to matter more as each campaign intensifies this summer ahead of the August primary.

"Tony Evers' advantage in the Democratic field for governor largely reflects public familiarity with him as a statewide elected official. Name recognition is a real asset for a candidate, but it will start to give way to other factors as the campaigns heat up," he said.

Burden said the groups who have the potential to bring in a wide donor base for firefighters union leader Mahlon Mitchell and Roys — like unions and EMILY's List — will start to mobilize their members and "inject badly-needed funds to support their candidates."

In the Democratic horse race, Evers leads the field with 25%, attorney Matt Flynn, liberal activist Mike McCabe and Madison Mayor Paul Soglin had 7%.

State Sen. Kathleen Vinehout of Alma had 5%, Milwaukee businessman Andy Gronik and Mitchell had 4%, Roys and Rep. Dana Wachs of Eau Claire had 2% and attorney Josh Pade had 1%.

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Low name recognition

A lot of people in the state still have not yet tuned into the governor's race, Franklin said. The poll found 34% were undecided in the Democratic primary, compared to 44% in early March.

Evers was the best known Democrat, but still, 61% did not know enough about him to form an opinion.

By comparison, just 3% couldn't form an opinion about Walker.

Despite a dearth of knowledge about any of the Democratic candidates, voters who identify as Democrats are still more enthusiastic about voting in this year's elections than Republicans.

Among Republicans, 67% are very enthusiastic, while among Democrats 71% are. Among independents, 51% say they are very enthusiastic about voting this year.

Democrats may look to a game plan put together by Tom Russell, former campaign manager for former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, who is overseeing an effort being funded in part by the Democratic Governors Association to build a network of donors and a post-primary strategy.

In a memo Russell wrote this week, he lays out Democratic performance in recent special elections and concludes Democrats have been "outperforming" the 2014 gubernatorial election in the districts where the elections were held by an average of 22 points, and that Democrats could beat Walker in November if they run 6 points ahead of their 2014 performance.

Walker's record on education will likely continue to be central to his Democratic challengers' campaigns — the poll found 59% of voters favor spending money on public schools over lowering property taxes if given the choice. Thirty-five percent said they would favor seeing their taxes lowered — a long-held priority for Walker.

Walker began calling himself "an education governor" this week and released an ad featuring a Racine teacher praising Walker's signature Act 10 legislation that essentially eliminated collective bargaining for public school teachers, resulting in many school staff paying more toward health insurance and pension costs.

Evers on Wednesday said despite the poll results giving Walker an edge, he will beat Walker in November.

"Wisconsin has had enough of Walker’s harmful policies and his phony baloney campaign ads,” Evers said, referring to Walker's new ad.

The survey of 800 registered voters was conducted June 13 through Sunday. A margin of error for the entire sample was plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Of the 318 Democratic primary voters, the sample was plus or minus 6.4 percentage points, with the 264 Republican respondents having a margin of error of 6.9 percentage points.

The half sample of 400 voters had a margin of error of 5.6 percentage points.

In the current sample, including so-called leaners, 47% identified as Republican and 44% identified as Democratic.