Here & Now

Impeachment, Dem. Pres. Candidates in Newest Poll

Frederica Freyberg:

Impeachment hearings, U.S. foreign policy, horserace numbers and the governor’s approval. A first look tonight at new poll results from the Marquette Law School poll. Poll Director Charles Franklin joins us now for results and analysis. Charles, thanks for being here.

Charles Franklin:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

So news out of the impeachment hearings in Washington is dizzying on a daily basis, but you asked about this. Let’s take a look at how Wisconsin is responding according to your polling. 46% of those you surveyed said there is enough cause to hold the hearings. 49% said there is not enough cause. 5% saying they don’t know. But there has been a definite uptick since you polled on this in April.

Charles Franklin:

That’s right. In April, we were in the context of the end of the Mueller Report and support was 17 points lower for holding hearings then than it is now. So that’s been a big change. And the context of what the subject matter is has shifted from the Mueller Investigation to the Ukraine situation, the phone call and so on. And the kind of evidence that’s already public on Ukraine includes the White House transcript of the phone call between President Trump and the president of Ukraine.

Frederica Freyberg:

Still only 46% of those you surveyed said there is enough cause notwithstanding this wall-to-wall coverage.

Charles Franklin:

Yeah, I think that’s partly a matter of partisan splits. Unsurprisingly Democrats are pretty positive about hearings, Republicans not so much. So I think it’s early in the process. I think one point about the hearings being behind closed doors is that while we have heard bits and pieces from opening statements and things like that, the public really has not seen the sort of package of those things. Republicans say they are unconvincing. Democrats say they’re utterly convincing. I think we need to see that laid out for the public to see the evidence and presumably that’s coming fairly soon.

Frederica Freyberg:

On international affairs, it does seem the president is upside down on this matter. According to your poll, 59% disapprove of President Trump’s handling of foreign policy, while 37% approve. In your mind, did the administration’s pull-out of troops from northeastern Syria tip the scales on this?

Charles Franklin:

I think that’s part of this. This is also where the Ukraine matter includes some foreign policy of how are we dealing with an ally, as well as the Syrian situation of how do we deal with the Kurds, who have been such a strong ally in the fight against ISIS. And you’ve seen Republican members of Congress push back especially in the Syrian situation with the Kurds. It means there’s a set of issues now which the president is uniquely responsible for and active in each of these decisions. And that’s quite different from things like building the border wall to the extent that that’s a big policy difference, but it’s been there from the beginning of his administration. This is new material.

Frederica Freyberg:

On the honesty of the president, your polling says that 65% of the respondents say Trump is someone that is not honest or honesty does not describe him, while 30% say it does describe him. In June, those numbers were better. What’s happened?

Charles Franklin:

They’re a little bit better. If you look over the course of the time since he’s been in the White House, he’s maybe come down five points or four points on the honesty, so it’s not a big change. But maybe a little bit lower. But that’s an example of I think — President Trump’s honesty ratings were pretty low, very low, in 2016 before the election as well. But that was a case where Hillary Clinton actually got lower ratings on honesty than he did. This something — a perception of the president that’s been baked in since the beginning and you either like him regardless of that or you dislike him because of it. But it hasn’t changed. Again, that’s what’s so different with Ukraine and Syria. These are new developments that he’s responsible for as opposed to the kind of person he is and people haven’t changed their perception very much of him on those grounds.

Frederica Freyberg:

Let’s talk about the Democratic candidates running for president. Wisconsin voters in your poll like Biden slightly more than the other Democratic frontrunners. Those three are ahead of Trump but not by much, in the case of Sanders and Warren. Where does Trump stand compared to these people?

Charles Franklin:

Where we are is that Joe Biden has a six-point lead over Trump. Sanders a two point. Warren a one point and Buttigieg trails Trump by two. All of those last three are inside the margin of error. For Warren and Sanders, their numbers move just a little bit between the August poll and now. Biden is down three points from a nine-point lead in August to six now. But I would stress that these are small moves and the margins are quite small, looking like competitive race.

Frederica Freyberg:

Super quickly, you added Buttigieg this time against Trump. Why?

Charles Franklin:

Because he’s been polling in fourth place in our two Wisconsin Democratic primary polls. He’s also been consistently polling around fourth place in national polls. We had asked about Kamala Harris earlier in August, but she has slipped down into fifth place in most of the national as well as our data. So we tried Buttigieg this time.

Frederica Freyberg:

Let’s take a look at Governor Evers’s polling. His job approval numbers, 52% approve, 34% disapprove, 13% no opinion. He cites your polling on his special session. Do you think that’s going to help or hurt him here?

Charles Franklin:

I don’t think that the polls have much to do with how legislators react to our proposals. I think the main thing with Evers is he is net popular. Plus 18 now. He was plus 20 in August, up from plus ten before the budget in the spring. But things like guns are a big range. So you get a big majority that the governor likes to cite for background checks and red flag laws, over 80% support. And over 70% of Republicans support those. But there are more controversial gun proposals, like mandatory buybacks of assault weapons. Only 13% of Republicans support, 70 something percent of Dems do, and net a majority oppose that. So the point is guns are not a single issue and they divide the parties in different ways on different aspects of the gun issue.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Charles Franklin, thanks a lot.

Charles Franklin:

Thank you.