Once again, Rasmussen Reports has done a general-election-level look at the Wisconsin Senate and gubernatorial races, and the story line from the Tuesday poll is the underdogs are closing up.
First, the Senate race, where the top line continues to be a Ron Johnson lead of 47%-46% over Russ Feingold. On the “undercard”, Dave Westlake is now within 7 points, down 47%-40%. That is as close as he’s been since the end of June.
The favorables are also rather interesting. There was little change in Johnson’s favorables (53% favorable/36% unfavorable/Approval Index of +6). Westlake’s favorables improved to 38% favorable/33% unfavorable/Approval Index of -5, mostly on the strength of an improvement of the strongly-favor to 7%.
The big move was Feingold; people either like him or really hate him. While his favorables are 53% favorable/44% unfavorable, his Approval Index is -1 and just 12% have a “somewhat unfavorable” view of him.
I briefly spoke with Westlake at the Stop Spending stop in Waukesha on Wednesday. He said he was quite happy with some internal polling his campaign had done on the primary race, but he didn’t go into any specifics on that.
On the gubernatorial side, Mark Neumann actually had the better head-to-head matchup against Tom Barrett. He was up 48%-44%, his biggest lead since the end of June. Scott Walker’s lead over Barrett shrunk to 47%-44%, his lowest lead since April.
The favorables don’t explain Walker’s slide in the head-to-head matchup. Walker’s favorables improved to 55% favorable/36% unfavorable/Approval Index of +8 (roughly equal to July, when he had a 50%-43% lead on Barrett), while Barrett’s slipped slightly to 45% favorable/47% unfavorable/Approval Index of -5 (signifcantly worse than July).
The big news on the favorability front is Neumann’s continued improvement as a result of focusing on his ideas rather than attacking Walker. His ratings improved to 54% favorable/34% unfavorable/Approval Index of +3. The last is the first positive number in qute a while. The bad news is Neumann went back on the attack the other day.
I guess it’s time for Rasmussen to do primary polling to see where things really are in the primaries.
