Here & Now

Charles Franklin Discusses Latest Marquette Poll

Frederica Freyberg:

The latest Marquette Law School poll is out this week and it shows approval ratings slipping for both the president and governor. The poll's director, Charles Franklin, is also professor of law and public policy at Marquette University. And Charles Franklin, thanks very much for being here.

Charles Franklin:

It's good to be here.

Frederica Freyberg:

The bottom line on your latest poll seem to be that approval and disapproval ratings for Governor Scott Walker and President Obama are slipping on one side and growing on the other. And as usual in this state split kind of by even margins. Let’s take a look at your numbers and maybe you can talk us through those. We have as of your July poll– oh, there it is– job approval for Governor Walker, 48, approval for Obama, 47. Disapproval, 46 and 46. So what does this tell us?

Charles Franklin:

Yeah. We’ve seen them pretty evenly divided all year. In fact, if you average across all of the polls we’ve done in the last 16 months, they both average 50% approval. So two points down is a little bit down– three points rather, is the slippage for both of them. The margin of error for the poll is 3.7 points. So it's just inside that margin. But what’s unusual is to see two politicians of opposite parties both move in the same direction. If the sample was more Republican, you would think Walker would go up and Obama down, or vise versa if it were a little more Democratic. Seeing them both move suggests that maybe this is a little bit of slippage. I wouldn’t over-emphasize it given the margin of error, but it’s a little bit of movement in the same direction for both of them.

Frederica Freyberg:

And it compares to your May numbers in that, again, as you suggested, in May they were both right at about the 50% mark. Now, I mean, when you look at the reasons, though, policy-wise or otherwise, jobs?

Charles Franklin:

We’re seeing a little bit more unsettledness about the economy. Evaluations of the economy had improved a bit in our May data, but became a little bit more negative, on balance about even, actually, but less optimistic. And in the state especially the question of job creation here matters a lot. About 48% think we are lagging behind other states in job creation. 44% think we are at least keeping up with other states. But that makes a huge difference. Even among Republicans, Republicans who think we’re lagging behind, approve of Governor Walker 24% less than those who think we’re keeping up. It’s exactly the same difference among Democrats, but it’s an amazing 52% difference among Independents. This is why we’re hearing a lot about jobs now, and I think we’ll hear a lot about jobs all the way through November 14.

Frederica Freyberg:

We only have about a minute left to talk about gender that you considered in your poll. What did you learn?

Charles Franklin:

There’s a gender gap, and of course, that’s not surprising. But what is interesting is at the presidential level the gap is about equal between men and women. Women are about nine points more approving of Obama. Men are about eight points less approving of Obama. When we look at Governor Walker, women are about nine points less approving, about the same as for the president, but for the men it’s amazing plus 15 points for Governor Walker. And so men are much more favorable to Walker than women are negative. That's specific of Walker, because it doesn't apply when we’re looking at the president. We always hear about the gender gap, but I think it’s really important to keep in mind there are two sides to the gender gap, and this greater split in Walker's favor among men is helping make up some for the fact that women are actually about 52% of the electorate these days.

Frederica Freyberg:

Charles Franklin, thanks very much.

Charles Franklin:

Thank you.