Here & Now

Poll Results Force Some Dems out of Gubernatorial Primary

Frederica Freyberg:

A first look tonight at the latest statewide poll on primary candidates and issues of import. The long list of democrats running for governor haven’t picked up much traction by way of name recognition and the primary is less than two months away. This week, two of the dems dropped out of the race, Milwaukee businessman Andy Gronik and Eau Claire State Representative Dana Wachs. Director of the Marquette Law School Poll Charles Franklin joins us now with more. Thanks very much for being here.

Charles Franklin:

Good to be here.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, so given what you know about polling and campaigns, would you expect more to drop out quickly?

Charles Franklin:

Well, I think the problem is with such a large democratic field, it’s been hard for people to get traction. Tony Evers has an advantage having been elected statewide three times already. So it’s been very hard for the rest of the pack to break out. We didn’t see anybody break out in the wake of the Democratic Party Convention in June, for example. And so I think those low numbers are an example of so many people spreading the support around.

Frederica Freyberg:

And so Tony Evers breaks out more than others as you say, but still, he’s not known by 61% of the respondents.

Charles Franklin:

And that’s the best known of the candidates, including the republican candidates for senate. I think Evers had an advantage in the teens in our March poll, now it’s up in the 20s, but there’s still 34% that say they’re undecided about who they’d support in the democratic primary. So that shows the fluidity that’s possible but also shows Evers has a really substantial advantage at this point.

Frederica Freyberg:

Lets go ahead and take a look at those screens because you’ve just been talking about the numbers here. They’re single digits except for Tony Evers and the same holds true only lower for the other candidates. How unusual is the size of this field?

Charles Franklin:

The field is exceptionally large. In Wisconsin politics, it may be a historic high. Nationally we saw a very large field in the republican primary in 2015 and ’16, so that was sort of a preview of what we’re seeing now. But the real problem with such a big field is divided resources, divided support, and then what does it take for someone to get traction and move up? It’s possible in big fields for someone to break out and supporters to suddenly coalesce around them, but we haven’t seen any evidence of that yet.

Frederica Freyberg:

Lets take a look at the senate primary. In that race, your polling shows that Nicholson sees 37% to Vukmir’s 32%, with 30% of the respondents saying they don’t know. Why no big bump here for Leah Vukmir after the Republican Convention?

Charles Franklin:

Thats really interesting because she got the endorsement solidly, 72% or 3%, I think, at the convention. We might have expected a boost for her, but her name recognition is better than it was in March, but so is Nicholson and hers didn’t bounce up a lot more. Same thing on the democratic side, Kelda Roys got the, won the straw poll at the Democratic Convention yet she’s still at 2% in our latest poll.

Frederica Freyberg:

Taking a look at the possible senate matchups, your poll found Baldwin receives 50% to 39% for Nicholson, 7% undecided, 4% saying they would vote for neither. And then matched against Vukmir, Baldwin receives 49% to 40% for Vukmir. Are these strong numbers for Tammy Baldwin?

Charles Franklin:

These are pretty good numbers for her. 50% is sort of a magic number, 49 is still 49, but the margin of 9 or 11 points is not small. That’s a pretty good margin. It is still July, or June, rather, and we still don’t have name recognition for Nicholson or Vukmir. Both of them are up in the high 60s, low 70s of non-recognition. So you know, I caution that we’re a ways away from the primary and we’re certainly ways away from the general.

Frederica Freyberg:

I makes me wonder, is all of this kind of non-name recognition anything to do with how national headlines might be stealing the show?

Charles Franklin:

I think there is certainly a competition that if you’re following politics closely, you’re overwhelmed by national news, and the latest things from the Trump White House, for example. If you’re a more casual viewer, then you turn on the TV and those things tend to crowd out any local information about your candidates. And none of the campaigns as campaigns have really gone up on the air with a massive ad campaign. We’ve seen some outside groups advertising and the campaigns are beginning to put some ads up, but we’re still not at the point where that would infuse the air with messaging.

Frederica Freyberg:

Its coming. So with about a minute left, I just wanted to ask you about matchups in the race for governor. Scott Walker’s support range from 44 to 49% but dem candidates support, you found range from 36 to 44%. Isn’t Walker basically running pretty close to these unknown candidates?

Charles Franklin:

He is, and that reflects how strongly divided the state remains about Scott Walker with a substantial percentage favoring him and supporting but a substantial percentage not. I think the takeaway here is that he leads by, let’s call it 4 percentage points across several of the candidates. Does a little better, there’s a 2-point margin with Mike McCabe, a 4-point with Tony Evers and couple of other democrats. But the bottom line here is, Walker versus a democrat is roughly a 4-point margin right now. And as the democrat ends up getting the nomination, we might see that tighten more.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Charles Franklin, thank you very much.

Charles Franklin:

Thank you.