No Runny Eggs

I really should have waited one more day to do a poll-a-copia because Public Policy Polling released their last pre-election poll taken of 1,372 likely voters between 10/26 and 10/28 this morning. On the other hand, there’s a few results in the identical 53%-44% leads Scott Walker and Ron Johnson enjoy over Tom Barrett and Russ Feingold (respectively) that bear longer looks than I could afford in a month-long “wrap-up” post.

The first item of note is the partisan split. PPP’s split in this poll was 37% independent, 34% Republican and 30% Democrat. I do have to note that Wisconsin does not have state-monitored party registration, and differeing polling firms have different screens for who is a Republican versus who is a Democrat. It is remarkable how even the topline likely-voter results are between the 4 different non-St. Norbert pollsters that took polls this month even as they had significantly different partisan splits.

PPP noted that there is a rather significant “enthusiasm gap” in Wisconsin, at least as it is measured by those who admitted to voting for Barack Obama in 2008 versus who actually voted for him in 2008. Obama carried Wisconsin by a 56.2%-42.3% margin over John McCain, but among the likely voters this year, only 49% admitted to voting for Obama while 46% said they voted for McCain.

PPP further noted that Obama’s job approval really slipped. Among all the likely voters, it was down to 37% approve/54% disapprove. That compares rather darkly to Rasmussen’s essentially-contemporaneous 48% approve/51% disapprove/-16 Approval Index (strong approve less strong diapprove, with no equivalent in PPP’s polling) statewide, and a national rolling average of 44% approve/55% disapprove/-20 Approval Index taken the same 3 days as PPP’s poll. Worse for Obama, his approval rating among those who admitted to voting for him was only 70% approve/18% disapprove. Perhaps that is why Obama has decided not to head to Wisconsin one more time (H/T-Ed Morrissey).

Meanwhile, both soon-to-be-ex-governor Jim Doyle’s and Russ Feingold’s job approval ratings were in negative territory, and worse than Rasmussen’s equivalent numbers (Rasmussen used favorability for Feingold rather than job approval). There also is a troubling trend for Herb Kohl in the PPP poll – his job approval index was barely above water at 41% approve/40% disapprove.