Here & Now

Charles Franklin on 2026 Wisconsin Governor Primary Matchups

Frederica Freyberg:
Turning to election news in the topsy turvy Democratic primary for governor, some insights from this week’s Marquette Law School poll. Even though it was in the field before Lieutenant Governor Sara Rodriguez dropped out, and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley got back into the race. Poll Director Charles Franklin is here with more. And thanks for being here.

Charles Franklin:
Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
So even in the midst of this upheaval, what are your takeaways from your latest poll?

Charles Franklin:
I think the biggest thing is that even with Rodriguez in the race, in our poll, Francesca Hong was still in first place. That’s the fourth poll in a row that she’s led. Mandela Barnes was in second place. Also the third poll that he’s been in second place since he got in the race. And of course, we didn’t have David Crowley because he was not a candidate at that moment. The other thing that’s really important is that 45% of Democratic primary voters said they hadn’t decided who they would vote for. So even before the turmoil of changing candidates, still, almost half of the Democratic electorate said they hadn’t settled on who they would support.

Frederica Freyberg:
So Hong’s supporters are really strong supporters.

Charles Franklin:
They are quite strong. They’re a little more likely to say they’re absolutely certain that that’s who they’re going to vote for. And when we ask for second choices, she doesn’t get that many second choices, which suggests in one sense, that her supporters are already behind her. But it also suggests that folks that are looking at candidates other than her are not as likely to come to her if their first choice goes away.

Frederica Freyberg:
If two thirds of Democratic voters say winning in November is extremely important, as according to your poll, how does Tony Evers’ endorsement of David Crowley factor into that?

Charles Franklin:
The importance of winning in November was uniform. No matter which candidate you were supporting, all of them gave that high rating to say it was extremely important. But Evers is remarkably popular among Democrats. He has an 89% job approval with Democrats right now. The question is whether his endorsements and activity in the campaign moves people on that decision, as opposed to they like the job he’s doing as governor but maybe they’re not going to be influenced by his recommendations. That we really don’t know at this point.

Frederica Freyberg:
So the Rodriguez lane was moderate Democrat. Who picks up most of her vote?

Charles Franklin:
When we asked second choices of people that supported her about an equal number went to Mandela Barnes and went to Joel Brennan. Smaller percentage, a good bit smaller, went to Hong and a small percentage went to Kelda Roys.

Frederica Freyberg:
So you described the undecideds at 45%. Would voters sit this one out and not vote because of all of this confusion?

Charles Franklin:
It’s possible. We do still see a high professed intention to vote. It certainly won’t be the level of a midterm election because primaries are much smaller than that. But I think the Democratic coalition is pretty well mobilized. The issue is, does this turmoil in the list of candidates take some people who were in that undecided category and make them just throw up their hands and say, “I’m not going to bother” or and this is, I think, a real possibility. It’s focusing attention on a race that had been pretty low key up until now. And so it may have the effect of actually energizing Democratic voters, but we’re also seeing a significant split across, especially Hong, Barnes and Crowley, potentially Crowley supporters, about how does that split the vote, and does it coalesce around one candidate, or does it just splinter the vote evenly?

Frederica Freyberg:
So even with Hong continuing to lead among Dems, your numbers show Barnes leads Tiffany while the rest of the field does not.

Charles Franklin:
That’s right. When we asked the general election question, Barnes is the strongest Democrat, leading Tiffany by four percentage points, whereas Hong trails Tiffany by three points. When we shift it to likely voters, the people who say they’re certain they’ll vote in the fall, Barnes lead goes up to five and Hong then ties Tiffany. So I think my take away from this is that there is a little bit of a differentiation between the candidates, but it’s a fairly close race, whether it’s Barnes or Hong or any of the other Democrats that we asked about. So guess what? It looks like another probably close election in Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:
Yeah. Does the shakeup at the top of the ticket inform the legislative races?

Charles Franklin:
Maybe. We asked about who would you vote for for the legislature. And Democrats had a small lead there, about a four-point lead. But that’s about just general voting. We don’t ask about individual races there. I do think that for Democrats chances in the fall, they certainly would benefit from a strong gubernatorial candidate and a winning Democratic campaign, because that support at the governor’s level can trickle down to the legislative races. I think it’s way too early to have any sense about whether whoever the nominee is will emerge as a very strong candidate or not.

Frederica Freyberg:
So meanwhile, you’re in the field again with a new poll to share with us next Wednesday.

Charles Franklin:
Things keep changing, so you have to keep doing new polls. This poll that will come out next Wednesday is only about Democratic primary voters and only about them. And we’ll certainly ask about opinions of Crowley vote again in the primary. And also Governor Evers endorsement, and whether people think that makes them more or less likely to support David Crowley. We will also be re-interviewing the people we’ve interviewed this past week. So we’ll be able to see whether those undecided folks last week have moved any further towards decision making this week. The only drawback to this is it’s a fairly short period of time, so we’ll still have two more weeks to Election Day when this poll is finished.

Frederica Freyberg:
Wow. Well, thank you for your work.

Charles Franklin:
Thank you.