No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Poll-a-copia, late-January WI Gov edition

by @ 14:53 on January 29, 2010. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

Rasmussen Reports delivered some more bad news for Democrats today, specifically Milwaukee mayor and presumptive Democratic gubernatorial nominee Tom Barrett. In a poll of 500 likely voters conducted Tuesday (margin of error 4.5%), he trails both of the main Republican challengers. Barrett trails Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker 48%-38% (with 12% unsure), and he trails former Congressman Mark Neumann 42%-38% (with 13% unsure).

While the public Rasmussen story merely mentions that both Republicans have significant leads over Barrett among those who don’t consider themselves part of either party, the Walker campaign in their press release notes that Walker has a 2-1 lead in that category.

For those playing along at home, Walker’s lead is more than double the margin of error, while Neumann’s lead is almost the margin of error. Moreover, that 38% that Barrett got against both Walker and Neumann is what the Democrats would get if they ran “Insert Candidate Here”, which combined with Barrett’s lack of effort beyond fundraising, is precisely what is running on that side of the aisle.

The favorability ratings are not exactly favorable for either Barrett or Neumann:

  • Walker has an “Approval Index” of +14 (29% very favorable/15% very unfavorable), and an overall approval/disapproval split of 56%-27%.
  • Neumann has an “Approval Index” of -1 (10% very favorable/11% very unfavorable), and an overall approval/disapproval split of 46%-35%.
  • Barrett has an “Approval Index” of +2 (19% very favorable/17% very unfavorable), and an overall approval/disapproval split of 44%-41%.

While the September WPRI/UW-Madison poll did not address the general election, it did address the favorability of all three candidates. At that time, a majority of those surveyed either had never heard of the three (an option not in the Rasmussen poll) or did not have an opinion on approval:

  • Walker had an “Approval Index” was +5.6 (12.6% very favorable/7.0% very unfavorable), with an overall approval/disapproval split of 29.7%-15.9%, 36.3% never hearing of him, and 18.1% not knowing enough.
  • Barrett had an “Approval Index” of +8.9 (12.0% very favorable/3.1% very unfavorable), with an overall approval/disapproval split of 35.9%-12.0%, 33.3% never hearing of him, and 18.9% not knowing enough.
  • Neumann had an “Approval Index” of +1.0 (5.1% very favorable/4.1% very unfavorable), with an overall approval/disapproval split of 24.1%-12.2%, 39.0% never hearing of him, and 24.6% not knowing enough.

I guess the “conventional wisdom” that those outstate hate Milwaukee applies mostly to Milwaukee Democrats. At the same time people turned away from city of Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett, and had a very mixed reaction to Mark Neumann, they seem to have embraced Milwaukee County executive Scott Walker.

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