To me, the significance of the Marquette Law School polls in Wisconsin is because news organizations run with the results and use it to shape their coverage. It's why I'm often touchy about a lot of it (especially given the connections between the right-wing Bradley Foundation and Marquette Law), because poll results are such a big part of how we cover elections, and how far too many voters use that coverage to decide what they should do.
But I respect the depth of information that accompanies the numbers. And now MU Law's first post-primary poll of Wisconsin is out, with it containing this pleasant surprise.
I was expecting Barnes to be ahead in this poll, but not by that much. And the reasons why are good signs if you want Ron Johnson to get the boot.
And people like Mandela (with more people gaining a positive opinion of him over the last two months), and a whole lot of people don't like Johnson.
That'll make it harder for Johnson/WisGOPs/oligarchs to knock down Mandela with ads, and Johnson's hateability makes it harder to keep him around for a third term.
On the flip side, the MU Poll on the Governor's election was closer than I thought it would be.
I'm very skeptical of that 7% for Joan Beglinger - a person I had never heard of until today, yet somehow is leading among the 9% of "true independents" that MU Law polled? I'm gonna bet most of those people fall towards Evers, they just don't want to admit that they have to choose among a 2-party system for them to get what they want.
And that Beglinger BS helps to explain how Michels "closed the gap" on Evers. It wasn't because a lot of indys (including those who lean toward one party or the other) actually switched to Michels.
Voters aren't disliking Evers - he's more liked now than he was two months ago, and people still think he is doing a good job.
When you realize that more than 1/5 of independents haven't chosen between Michels and Evers, it sure seems that Evers would have the edge when you look at what independents think about issues.
And Michels' stated desire to keep abortion outlawed in Wisconsin isn't going to help him win independents. They support abortion rights 3-to-1, with 95% of them disagreeing with Michels position of "no abortions at all."
I also can't think that independents would be in favor of Michels' support of the Big Lie. Or the fact that Michels rode Trump's endorsement to a primary win.
This also was an interesting breakdown.
That 4-point lead among those "certain to vote" tells me Evers does better among those who are paying attention, while less involved Wisconsinites are more likely to think Michels is some kind of "generic Republican" that wouldn't change a lot if he was elected. They are wrong on that, DEAD WRONG, and I'm betting that won't help Michels once voters find out.
I also think there's a post-election bump that helps both Barnes and Michels. People like seeing a winner, no matter the level of election, and they're both non-incumbent faces that haven't had a lot of investigation from some casual voters.
My guess is that you can take about 4 points off of both candidates, which makes it Evers by 6 and Barnes by 3, and that's pretty close to the baseline case right now. Lot of way to go in the next 83 days, and you can bet there will be a lot more twists and turns and flat-out BS, but I'd rather be the Dems than the GOPs today, and not just because I want this state and this country to remain something that I recognize and care for.