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.

The mo’ is with Johnson

by @ 13:18 on July 15, 2010. Filed under Politics - National, Politics - Wisconsin.

Rasmussen Reports has upped their polling tempo ahead of the election, and the news is very good for Ron Johnson. In a poll taken July 13 of 750 likely voters, he has pulled ahead of Russ Feingold for the first time, 47%-46%. That compares favorably to a Rasmussen late-June poll that had Feingold up 46%-45%, and a Public Policy late-June poll that had Feingold up 45%-43%. The Slimeroad Slime Machine still isn’t working, as Johnson’s favorables climbed to 51% favorable (up 19 points from June)/30% unfavorable (up 5 points from June)/+11 “Passion” Index (up 2 points from June).

The toplines are, once again, more favorable to the Democrats than the national picture. Once again, President Obama’s Wisconsin approval ratings (49% approve/51% disapprove/-14 Approval Index) are better than the national numbers (48% approve/52% disapprove/-17 Approval Index). Various other questions, from Gulf drilling to PlaceboCare, from illegal immigration to the Tea Party Movement, reveal a slightly more leftward tilt (or more properly, a lesser rightward tilt) in Wisconsin than nationally. Feingold also improved his favorables to 53% favorable (up 1 point from June)/43% unfavorable (down 2 points from June)/+5 “Passion” Index (up 5 points from June).

The news isn’t nearly as good for Dave Westlake. A couple weeks after getting to within 6 points of Feingold, Westlake now trails 51%-37%. Despite being in the race for well over a year, he is still so unknown 31% of those surveyed could not form an opinion on him, and only 13% had a strong opinion. While his overall favorability improved to 36% favorable (up 2 points from June)/31% unfavorable (unchanged from June), his “Passion” Index dropped another point to -5.

Revisions/extensions (1:39 pm 7/15/2010) – Just for grins, I decided to see if I could see whether the polls back in 1998 indicated that Mark Neumann was as close as his 2-point loss. CNN came through, and the closest Neumann was that year was a late-October Market Shares/WTMJ-TV poll that had him down 3 points. Two other contemporary polls had Feingold up 7 points, and polls earlier showed larger leads for Feingold.

That means this race is the closest for Feingold since he pulled off the upset in 1992.

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