Podcasts

Frederica Freyberg:
Notwithstanding our efforts to bring you the positions of the candidates for state Supreme Court and governor in our weekly reporting on issues in the races, a new Marquette Law School poll this week shows two thirds of voters are undecided between Judges Chris Taylor and Maria Lazar in the April 7 election for Supreme Court. Likewise, in the large field of Democratic candidates and the lone Republican in the race for governor, which will be narrowed in an August primary, the poll shows no runaway leader with most candidates not well known by voters. Poll director Charles Franklin joins us now and thanks for being here.

Charles Franklin:
Good to be here.

Frederica Freyberg:
So what does it say about voter engagement when roughly 66% of your respondents don’t know enough about the two Supreme Court candidates less than two months away?

Charles Franklin:
I think it’s first of all, it is unusually low engagement this year. It’s not nearly as high as it was a year ago or in the gubernatorial races as it was in, say, 2018 or 2022. So we do seem a little less engaged right now. Some of that is that the advertising has not really kicked in in the Supreme Court race compared to where it was a year ago. This time, only 6% said they’d heard or read a lot about the Supreme Court race. A year ago, that was 39% at this same time in February. So I think those things will pick up but we’re getting started a bit slower than we did a year ago.

Frederica Freyberg:
I’ll say. In the governor’s race, most of the eight major candidates between 52% and 82% who took your poll have not heard enough about them. Of course, former Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes is a little better known. But should anyone take stock in this kind of poll number at this point?

Charles Franklin:
I think the stock you take is the disengagement. That all of these candidates have work to do introducing themselves to voters. Mandela Barnes is the best known by a good bit, followed by Tom Tiffany, followed by Sarah Rodriguez on the Democratic side. But all of them have the chance to introduce themselves to voters over the next however many — eight months it is, seven months till the primary, but that will take time. And often we see that in primaries people don’t really tune in until June.

Frederica Freyberg:
On the issues which you also polled on, data centers, as we all know, are a hot topic right now. You looked at how people viewed the cost benefit analysis of them. Your results show respondents from all parties think the costs outweigh the benefits, but who wins the day here? Public opinion or moneyed interests?

Charles Franklin:
Well, moneyed interests are certainly important, and the development of these centers is an economic priority for a whole industry. But the public has not been convinced. I think the proponents of data centers have failed to convince the public that those benefits are real. People recognize that technical jobs and tax revenue for communities are important benefits, but they look at water usage as a big concern, cost. They also are concerned about electricity. Maybe surprisingly, the second biggest cost people point to is developing AI and saying we shouldn’t develop artificial intelligence. So there’s a real need to communicate with voters about what those benefits are or the critics end up with the upper hand on this. And we’ve seen a big movement away from data centers since October when we first asked.

Frederica Freyberg:
On immigration, the way its enforcement has rolled out is not favored, with 44%, just 44% approving and 56% disapproving. Do you think but for the Minneapolis surge and the shooting deaths by the Border Patrol of two people, these numbers would look different?

Charles Franklin:
I think that the events that have been going on in Minneapolis have certainly tilted independents away from the way they view ICE. Republican approval of ICE is still quite high in the 70, 70 plus percent range, 80% actually on ICE. But Democrats are deeply negative. More importantly is independents, now three quarters, are negative about ICE.

Frederica Freyberg:
Then there’s the issue everyone is talking about. That is property taxes versus school funding. Your poll results show 60% of registered voters prefer reducing property tax, while 40% would rather spend more on public schools. Now, you have been pulling on this for years. Is this newly resonant now?

Charles Franklin:
It is, and but it’s been building for a long time. We’ve seen this trend move. We’ve done, I think it’s 26 polls on this since 2012. This is the biggest ever that say property taxes are more important. 60 to 40. We saw a big majority saying schools were more important in 2015 to 2019, but those trends have moved in opposite directions. Property taxes are really ascendant right now.

Frederica Freyberg:
Interesting. Charles Franklin, thank you so much.

Charles Franklin:
Thank you.