No Runny Eggs

The Wisconsin Policy Research Institute and the UW-Madison Political Science Department released a joint poll of 700 Wisconsinites with landline phones polled between September 27 and September 29. A summary of the poll, complete with charts comparing the current poll with previous polls is here, while the full and raw crosstabs are here.

Before I go into the numbers, I did ask WPRI for clarification on whether any pre-determined factors, such as party ID or income, were used to “smooth” the results, and was told that none was used.

• While those who consider themselves Democrats outnumber those who consider themselves Republicans 33.3% to 25.6% (which moves to a 47.0% D-42.3% R advantage once leaners are included), former Republican governor Tommy Thompson would win a hypothetical matchup against Democratic Senator Russ Feingold 43.1%-39.1%. The summary also notes that the number of self-described Democrats have been declining since last year.
• While President Barack Obama remains popular in Wisconsin (57.4% at least somewhat approve of his job performance, 40.5% at least somewhat disapprove), the Rasmussen-style Presidential Approval Index (those who strongly approve less those who strongly disapprove) is -0.2. That compares very favorably to Rasmussen’s national daily tracking poll over that same period of 49% approve, 50% disapprove and a Presidential Approval Index of -6.
• That approval flies in the face of the national “right/wrong track” question. Not only does “wrong track” beat “right direction” 53.7%-36.6%, the summary notes that that Wisconsin is more pessimistic than the nation as a whole.
• Another contra-indicator of Obama’s “popularity” is the failure of health care “reform” – 34.9% oppose the Democratic plans of Placebocare, while only 28.3% support it.
• Meanwhile, Governor Jim Doyle is rather unpopular, with 43.2% at least somewhat approving of his his job performance, 52.3% at least somewhat disapproving, and a Rasmussen-style Gubernatorial Approval Index of -23.7.
• None of the presumptive candidates for governor (Mark Neumann and Scott Walker on the Republican side, Barbara Lawton and the unannounced Tom Barrett on the Democratic side) achieved 51% recognition even among those who say they are ideologically part of that party. Therefore, I won’t comment further on the poll questions relating to the race (general favorability ratings and the primary matchups).
• The generic Assembly ballot shows a 40.0% Democrat to 35.0% Republican split. However, again there are contra-indicators galore:
  • Contra-indicator #1 – 57.6% say that Wisconsin is on the wrong track, while 32.4% say that things are going in the right direction. Of note, the “wrong track” crowd has increased since last year.
  • Contra-indicator #2 – A plurality of 32.7% of those surveyed say that “improving the state’s economy and protecting jobs” should be the top priority of the Legislature and the governor (I’ll come back to this in a bit), and the 17.9% say that “holding the line on taxes and government spending” is the most important issue represents the second-largest group, ahead of, in order, “more-affordable” health care, other unnamed issues, improving education, fighting crime, protecting the environment, campaign finance reform, affordable electricity and gas prices.
  • Contra-indicator #3 – 57.4% say that they can trust the state government to do the right thing only some of the time, and another 10.7% say that they can never trust the state government to do the right thing.
  • Contra-indicator #4 – 45.6% say that the policies of the state government over the last year have made the economy worse, 34.1% say that they have had no effect, and only 13.4% say that they have made it better.
• Back to the economy; there is a significant contra-indicator there. 47.6% would rather protect the environment than protect jobs, 38.7% would rather protect jobs than protect the environment, and 9.0% consider both equally-important. However, going back to the most-important issue for the Legislature and governor, while the economy garnered a 32.7% plurality, protecting the environment ranked 6th of 9 issues listed at 1.0%.

As I said, there’s something for everybody.

Revisions/extensions (4:28 pm 10/6/2009) - How could I forget the “Where do you get most of your news” question? There are several interesting items in that:

- Television dominates across most of the categories (49.3% overall, 52.8% of Democrats, 49.2% of Republicans, 46.2% of independents, over 50% of those over 35 years old).
- The Internet (which covers both blogs and online versions of the traditional media) is a distant second overall at 19.6%. However, it has made strong inroads among those under 36 years old (40.0%, which is a plurality in that group), independents (24.0%) and males (23.0%).
- At 15.0%, newspapers barely beat radio (14.7%). Its adherents are mostly old (25.9% of those over 64 years old) and Democrat (18.5%). The bad news for publishers is only 7.5% of those under 36 years old see them as their primary news source.

I really need to make a longer statement on the state of the media, but I will note a couple of things:

- Television is extremely weak in pursuing local and state issues.
- Newspapers, which traditionally have taken the lead in local/state issues, have not only become rather cozy with certain local/state politicians, but have cut their ability to cover local/state politics beyond the bone because of their aging and shrinking readership.
- Nobody has figured out how to consistently make money with a ‘net-based operation.