Here & Now

Election Heads into Final Stretch

Frederica Freyberg:

In election news, this week’s Marquette Law School Poll results. The survey was taken after the first presidential debate and while Wisconsinites considered the news of President Trump’s coronavirus infection. Poll Director Charles Franklin joins us now to go over the results. Thank you for being here.

Charles Franklin:

Always a pleasure.

Frederica Freyberg:

So your polling shows just a 1 point shift in margin since early September.

Charles Franklin:

We’ve had very little shift. It is a five point Biden lead this month. It was four points in September. If you go back to May, the Biden has led in all of them but by four, six, five, four, and now five again. Easy summary would be five percent plus or minus one.

Frederica Freyberg:

You said it’s the phenomenal story of this administration that events that we think are massive and should have gigantic impacts don’t. Why is this even after the debate and the COVID diagnosis?

Charles Franklin:

I think one part of the story, of course, is partisan polarization and we have such strong views of Trump. 30 to 35% say they strongly approve of the job he is doing. 45 to 48% say they strongly disapprove. So that’s one part of it. But I do think the other thing is as we’ve seen major event after major event, none of them have fundamentally changed the views of the president because the president hasn’t changed much in response to those. And so Trump is Trump. The consistency of the image he presents, the style he adopts, and the things he says have been consistent as we’ve gone through all the various events and crises of the last four years. And so in that sense there has been no moment when he looks like a different person than he had been before. Including his illness this weekend.

Frederica Freyberg:

True enough. How significant is that undecided number of 8%?

Charles Franklin:

It’s half or less of what it was four years ago. So that’s an important fact that it is a less volatile electorate, a less undecided electorate than four years ago. When we look at who those folks are, they tend to be nonpartisan, don’t lean to either party. They tend to not approve of the job Trump is doing but they also tend to not like Joe Biden very much. And so that is a question of will they stay home, will they vote third party, or will in the end they come back to one candidate or the other? But as of now, it looks like they are fairly evenly divided. A lot of them simply refuse to be pushed towards one candidate or another. About 60% of those undecided folks when we pushed them say, “No I really am undecided.”

Frederica Freyberg:

You spoke to this a moment ago but the President’s overall job approval numbers are under water, 52% disproving to 44% approving and yet he has good approval on the economy.

Charles Franklin:

That’s right. We’ve seen this consistently throughout his term and certainly over the last six months. He has been about 8% more disapprove than approve as we are now or sometimes 10 but the economy does remain the strong suit. 51% approve of the job he is doing there. Compared to just 41% on the coronavirus and 37% on handling protests. So the economy is the strong suit.

Frederica Freyberg:

Let’s go ahead, speaking of coronavirus, and look at Tony Evers coronavirus approval and disapproval numbers. 56% approve of how he is handling the pandemic. What do you think explains that, even though it’s his lowest approval since March?

Charles Franklin:

You’re right. In March he shot up to a phenomenal 76% on handling COVID. This was a phenomenon we saw across the country where governors in most states got really high marks for their initial response. That support has fallen off in the months since, though with Evers, it’s still solidly net positive. I think part of it is simply that governors were proactive in addressing and dealing with the virus even though certainly there have been disagreements with them over that. With President Trump he only hit a high of 51% approval on coronavirus in March. And has fallen off, as I said, down to 41% now. Never as high as the governors got.

Frederica Freyberg:

Speaking of being proactive, the mask mandate has 72% support. A big number even as Republicans are in court trying to overturn it. What do you think is the political science of turning a public health crisis partisan in this way?

Charles Franklin:

It is sort of striking that it has become as partisan as it is. In this month’s poll, though, we saw near unanimity among Democrats. 98% supported the masks. 66% of independents. But among Republicans it was an even split 47 to 48 or 49. So you know, a lot of political issues will see 80% of one party going one way and 80% of the other but actually Republicans evenly divided here. Seems like more of a balance within the GOP than what you see in court. And the arguments that elected Republicans make in a much more critical of the governor’s mask mandate. Very few elected Republicans that I’ve heard are supporting that mandate but their party, their rank and file are evenly split on the issue.

Frederica Freyberg:

Wow, you know your numbers. Thank you very much. We had more slides we wanted to get to but we can’t do it today. Charles Franklin, you will be back the last week of this month with your final poll before the election. Thanks very much.

Charles Franklin:

Thank you. Look forward to it.