Here & Now

Charles Franklin Updates on Latest Marquette Poll

Frederica Freyberg:

As both candidates are making news this week, brand new poll numbers are out on the governor’s race and here to walk us through some of the results of the latest Marquette law school survey is the director of the poll, Charles Franklin. And Charles, thanks very much for being here.

Charles Franklin:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

Let’s go immediately to the number one poll question, and it was in the race for governor. Your polling shows that Scott Walker is at 48%, Mary Burke at 41%. Now, this is pretty static from the last time you took this survey?

Charles Franklin:

Absolutely. It was a six-point 47%/41% in January, essentially unchanged. Our margin of error is 3.5, so a one point difference is very, very small.

Frederica Freyberg:

It was before she rolled out her big jobs plan. Does that kind of thing ever move the needle at all?

Charles Franklin:

It could, but I think the broader campaign gearing up, both candidates becoming more visible in a campaign mode, and of course advertising. There has been some advertising between January and now, but it doesn’t seem to have changed the race much.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, are these numbers tight from a pollster’s perspective?

Charles Franklin:

I think what you’d see here is a seven-point lead is just outside the margin of error for our poll, so it looks like a lead. But it’s not an insurmountable lead, nor is it an absolute neck-and-neck cliffhanger at this point.

Frederica Freyberg:

Let's go to our next poll question that we're looking at, job approval. The governor’s numbers are evenly split as for all intents are his favorable and unfavorable numbers, slightly higher on the favorable. What does this say compared to his overall numbers against Mary Burke?

Charles Franklin:

Well, I think the notable thing is his job approval rating actually came down a significant amount, between 51% approval in January to 47% now. And the disapproval went up some. So there has been some shifting in how voters see him. But there’s still some things that are pushing strongly in his favor, seeing the state headed in the right direction, for example. And there’s some other things, the jobs numbers in the state, that are still a bit of a drag on him.

Frederica Freyberg:

Then we think it get it gets really interesting. These are Mary Burke’s favorables and unfavorables. They are completely overtaken by the percentage of people though who have not heard of her, 53%. Given the polarity in the state of Wisconsin and people’s attention on politics, is that number surprising at this point?

Charles Franklin:

You know, it is not, because this is her first time up for a statewide race. She was at 70% that didn’t recognize her in January, so actually this is down a bit. And to put it in perspective, Senator Ron Johnson had a 44% failing to recognize him in our poll. And so there’s someone who’s been in office for three years and still is unknown. So I’m not at all surprised that Burke’s recognition is where it is, but recognition is rising and will surely be nearly universal by election day.

Frederica Freyberg:

I was going to ask, at what point does that get a jump-start?

Charles Franklin:

I think the question is, when does the campaign really ramp up? In past elections, we could wait until April or May before we even talked about who candidates would be, yet alone an active campaign. But we’ve seen some early advertising, reportedly about a million dollars spent by Republican Governors’ Association, so I think we’ll see an earlier ramp-up. Whether that comes in April or waits until May or June, nevertheless it will be earlier than in past years.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, our next poll question we want to look at is the right track/wrong track. It says, challenger Burke has her work cut out for her, not only to get known, but apparently to change public opinion of Scott Walker because 54%, as it says here, think Wisconsin is on the right track compared to 42%. So does this mean that out of the Burke camp we’re going to see a really big push of negative ads?

Charles Franklin:

Well, I think the question is, what do we mean by right track? Jobs are rising in the state, but they’re not rising as fast as other states. The budget is in better shape than it was, but is the money being spent for the right purposes? There’s plenty of room for argument over those kinds of issues. But the right track number is at about where it was just before the recall election. Clearly, the Burke campaign needs to convince voters that there’s a reason to reevaluate how the governor's doing and the direction on the sate.

Frederica Freyberg:

We only have 45 seconds left, but we want to get to this empathy question, as we're calling it. 51% say Scott Walker doesn’t care about people like me. On the Burke side her does care responses are higher than her doesn’t care, but again a good number have no idea whether she cares. How do you reconcile the Walker number, again, with his otherwise favorable numbers?

Charles Franklin:

Yeah, I think the interesting thing is, before the recall Walker was a little bit more cares than doesn’t care in a very divided time. Now it’s sort of drifted the other way. It could be people see him as an administrator, but not as an empathetic person. It could also be that they don’t like the direction that he’s taken. And finally, that’s going to be the interesting thing over the campaign. In 2012 we saw those numbers move a lot more Governor Thompson. We’ll see whether they’re stable, whether they rebound or go down.

Frederica Freyberg:

We’ll look for your next poll. Charles Franklin, thanks very much.

Charles Franklin:

Thank you.