Here & Now

Marquette Poll Finds Walker Approval Rating At 41 Percent

Frederica Freyberg:

But first the latest Marquette University poll shows the state could be souring on Governor Scott Walker and his policies. We check in with the pollster, Charles Franklin. We said that about possibly voters souring on Governor Scott Walker because of his approval ratings that you showed in your poll. And those showed that 41% approve and 56% disapprove of his performance. How does that number compare to other polls?

Charles Franklin:

It’s sort of a striking shift, too. In October, just before the election, his approval was 49%, and disapproval 47%. So, he was at a plus 2 then. He’s at a minus 15 now. That’s quite a swing. There’s been one other state poll by a different organization, public policy polling, in March. Prior to that, in January, two polls showed approval at 55% and52%. So it looks like the shift that’s taken place has come in the wake of both the budget being introduced, the legislative debate over the budget and, of course, his rising presidential campaign.

Frederica Freyberg:

How does it compare to perhaps his lowest approval rating?

Charles Franklin:

Here it’s strikingly low. In the 27 previous polls that we've done since January of 2012, his previous low was 46%. So it’s a full five points below the lowest that we’ve measured in three years. Now, if you go back to 2011, when we didn’t do any polling, we hadn’t started, but others were there, there you saw some readings that were in the 43% range, 42%. I think the all-time low by anybody was 38%. But all of those were taken during the protests over Act 10, the sort of high water mark of opposition to the Governor, if you will.

Frederica Freyberg:

So if we think what’s driving this is kind of his budget and policies, let’s take a look atone of those budget items and that is spending on k-12. According to your poll, 78% of the respondents oppose those cuts. 18% approve them. What do you make of those numbers?

Charles Franklin:

Well, these are pretty striking. You know, anytime you get over about 65% in a poll, you're looking at really a very lopsided result. I think you can also look at it as the series of cuts that public education that were part of Act 10, that were part of giving schools the tools to manage their budgets. I think the other thing that's going on here is during the 2014 campaign the focus was on budget matters. We’re going to have a surplus this year. We’re going to have a balanced budget next year. It didn’t portray problems. Even as he introduced the budget, the Governor talked about it as being a balanced, responsible budget. When citizens look at that and see these deep cuts in programs they otherwise support, like k-12 education, you would expect some push back. Add to that the fact that Republican leaders and members of the Legislature have been saying we don’t like a lot of elements here, including that particular one, and now the Governor’s being criticized by people within his own party. It’s not just people from the other party criticizing him. Finally, he’s out of town a lot. He’s not traveling around the state defending why he thinks it was a good idea to make those cuts and thus defending his budget and making the arguments for why he chose to do the things that he did in this budget.

Frederica Freyberg:

Knowing what you know about the Governor, do you think that these poll results surprise him?

Charles Franklin:

Oh, I don’t know. I’d be surprised if he’s not doing plenty of polling in the state on his own, and I would expect that most polls would show somewhat similar things. I think the bigger question is in his conference call last night he said, well, look, it’s the low point of the budget process. When we get a budget, people are going to like the budget that passes and my approval ratings will go back up. Time will answer that question.

Frederica Freyberg:

Let’s go to another item, the cuts to the UW System. According to your poll, 51% –I’m sorry, 70% oppose those cuts, 26% support those cuts. Do these results, do you think, show that austerity in theory for voters maybe is better than in practice?

Charles Franklin:

Well, it’s always hard to accept cuts to programs that people for the most part like. Now, we didn’t ask about the tuition freeze this time, but in the past that’s polled quite well. People were very approving of doing that. But I think the question become show deep are these, what are the consequences for universities, campuses around the state. And we are seeing consequences in terms of buyouts of employees in those places. But coupled with the continuing tuition freeze, it means the university is much more strapped for how it can manage these decisions. Now, it’s fair to say Republicans in the Legislature think the University and the Regents have not been proactive enough in figuring out how to contain costs and hold down increases, not just now, but over a course of years. It does seem clear that we have a real problem with how we manage the university system. And those are longstanding cuts. Remember, it was Jim Doyle that cut the university by $250 million a few years ago. So these things are not a one-time event. They’re a long-running problem with government and university relations.

Frederica Freyberg:

I’m going to skip ahead. We had a couple of other screens, but we’re running a little low on time. I want to skip ahead to Scott Walker’s all-but-announced run for president and your polling says that most respondents don't want to see him do it and say a sitting Governor can’t do that and handle his state duties. But it’s not as though this was a surprise. And then you found this result, 52% polled favor Clinton over40% to Walker. And yet that puts him kind of in the middle of the pack?

Charles Franklin:

That’s right. The best performance was Rand Paul, who trailed Clinton by eight. Ted Cruz trailed by 16. It’s not a surprise that our state remains deeply divided over the Governor. There’s a floor level of opposition no matter what. Hillary Clinton is leading all Republicans quite consistently. We are a long ways out from the election. The reason we asked these questions now is to establish the baseline of where does the race begin, who has the advantage and the disadvantage now, because that’s how we understand how things evolve over the course of the next year and a half or more.

Frederica Freyberg:

And we’ll be looking to you for those answers. Charles Franklin, thanks very much.

Charles Franklin:

Thank you.