Here & Now

Last Marquette Poll Before Election

Frederica Freyberg:

The ultimate poll will be taken on Tuesday. Until then, the best snapshot of the Wisconsin vote is the Marquette Law School Poll. Poll Director Charles Franklin joins us now with the results of his final 2020 survey. Charles, thanks very much for being here.

Charles Franklin:

Good to be here. Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

So we wanted to look first at your likely voters match-ups and what you show is that it’s 48% Biden to 43% Trump, 2% Jorgensen and 7% no answer basically. You say this is sensitive to turnout. Describe what you mean.

Charles Franklin:

First of all, we tested whether it mattered. You know, we could have a very high turnout. I’m expecting us to set a record for turnout and that’s what our respondents are telling us. But we checked it. What if you had a super high turnout? Then that five-point margin goes to four. But paradoxically, if we had an unusually lower than expected turnout, it actually goes to three-point margin. That’s a small difference, just two points between the lowest turnout and highest turnout. I’m sticking with the five that captures our likely voters. Also, of that 7% that didn’t tell us who they’d vote for, when we look at how those people feel about Biden and feel about Trump, turns out they split equally between liking one and not the other and vice versa. The result is Biden goes up to 50 and Trump goes up to 45 if we allocate them but it still keeps the same five-point margin.

Frederica Freyberg:

Meanwhile, has there been anything since you were in the field with this poll that you feel moves the needle for either candidate at this point?

Charles Franklin:

All year we’ve been looking at major events that haven’t moved the needle much. I don’t think we’re at a stage where something, a last-second surprise could really shift things. I think it’s more a question of do voters who are thinking of crossing party lines stick with that or do they have second thoughts when push comes to shove? And then there’s the final thing about turnout. We’ve looked for high and low turnout. Is there an unequal surge in turnout on Election Day that we’ve not captured? Those are the things that could still shift the results.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, let’s take a look at early voters. In your poll, 64% of those early voters go to Biden, 25% to Trump. These numbers are obviously lopsided, but not the end of the story because, again, in-person voting.

Charles Franklin:

And in-person voters are going 35 for Biden, 56 for Trump. A little bit narrower. The other thing is the early vote has gotten a bit tighter over time. In the summer, far more Democrats expected to vote early. But as we’ve gone through the fall, more Republicans have in fact voted early. More Democrats have shifted to voting either in person on election day or maybe early in person. As a result, that margin has narrowed a little bit from a month ago when it was over 70% going for Biden in the early vote.

Frederica Freyberg:

I want to jump to Trump’s handling of coronavirus. You show that 58% of your respondents disapprove of that, 40% approve. This has slipped as the cases have surged. This is especially acute in Wisconsin.

Charles Franklin:

Yes, it is. The cases have been rising for two months. This is now Trump’s lowest net approval on his handling of the virus since March, when he was net positive at 51% approval. It’s been going down ever since. And this is now his weakest area of approval, slightly worse than his handling of protests, worse than his overall and a lot worse than his overall — than his economic approval.

Frederica Freyberg:

Yeah. And we should point out that he still does well on that economic approval, but we need to leave it there. Charles Franklin, thanks very much.

Charles Franklin:

Thank you.