From Hong to Trump to Evers to Act 10 to data centers: 10 takeaways from the Marquette poll
The Dem primary poll has a big asterisk with it, since it did not include David Crowley in the race, but there's still a wealth of information showing so much about the state of politics in Wisconsin.
The Recombobulation Area is a 19-time 21-TIME! Milwaukee Press Club award-winning opinion column and online publication founded by Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer.
As we reach previously unforeseen levels of discombobulation in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, there was a new Marquette poll released on Wednesday, and here at The Recombobulation Area, I write an in-depth breakdown of every new Marquette poll.
This one is different.
It’s different first because there is a big asterisk associated with results everyone had been looking for — the first legitimate public poll of the Democratic primary in months — because of the utter chaos unfolding in the race. This poll was conducted from July 8-16, a stretch that includes David Crowley ending his campaign and Sara Rodriguez’s campaign imploding over a campaign finance crisis, and concluded the day before Rodriguez dropped out of the race and Crowley was on the verge of re-entering the race.
So, as poll director Charles Franklin explained during the poll release program at 12:15 p.m. on Wednesday, July 22, Crowley is not in this poll at all. That means that much of this data in this poll, at least as it pertains to the most urgently compelling element of it, comes with major caveats.
But still, what’s great about the Marquette poll is that it is not just the headline horserace numbers that makes this poll especially interesting. It’s the rest — the issue-specific questions, the state policy insight, national news reactions, in-depth crosstabs on everything from regional data to ideology to age to income and on down the line — that sets this poll apart. It’s that context that brings so much illustrative knowledge to our understanding of Wisconsin politics.
And, of course, this poll came with a twist ending: There will be another Marquette poll, specific to the Democratic primary, released next week, on July 29, at 11 a.m.
And that won’t be the only poll released before primary day, as State Navigate, Main Street Action and UpNorthNews are working on a poll of their own, too.
So, we’ll have quite a bit more legitimate polling to get an understanding of this race as we hurtle toward the Aug. 11 primary.
For now, though, let’s dig into this one. There’s so much here.
Let’s recombobulate.
Headlines for topics below include (click to jump to a topic):
Hong emerges as primary frontrunner, Barnes polls best vs. Tiffany, undecideds loom
Francesca Hong has a clear lead in the primary — but voters are spooked by socialism
Barnes polls best against Tiffany, but concerns lurk in echoes of 2022
Trump posts his worst approval rating in the history of the Marquette poll
The generic ballot in the state legislature favors Democrats
Will Republicans still run on keeping Act 10 after this poll?
Hong emerges as primary frontrunner, Barnes polls best vs. Tiffany, undecideds loom
Let’s start with the headline news from this poll. There is one candidate who is clearly ahead in this primary now, and that’s State Rep. Francesca Hong. She has built a real lead now, and in this race, has gone from wildcard to contender to frontrunner. No matter how you slice it, she’s in the lead.
She leads her next closest challenger, former lieutenant governor Mandela Barnes, by a double-digit margin. State Sen. Kelda Roys and former Department of Administration secretary Joel Brennan posted a combined total of 3%. It’s hard to make sense of what Rodriguez’s number shows, but at 11%, she was not within range of the lead, either. Hong leads among every income level, education level, and in every region of the state. She is in position to win this primary.
But in the first head-to-head polling in the race, Barnes fares best against presumptive Republican nominee Tom Tiffany, the congressman from the 7th District. As Charles Franklin put it, “Barnes is the strongest against Tiffany in this poll.”
Rodriguez, too, polled ahead of Tiffany. But Hong polled three points behind, which will invariably fuel general election electability concerns many have surrounding the candidacy of the democratic socialist from Madison.
Still, many voters are still not tuned into this race. A whopping 45% of registered voters remain undecided. And the most undecided of any of the three ideological groups among Democratic primary voters in the poll — moderate/conservative, liberal, very liberal; groups of roughly equal size — are the moderates, where 60% do not yet have a preferred candidate (and 12% were backing Rodriguez).
With less than 20 days to go before the primary, and considering all that is happening and continues to happen at an increasingly rapid pace in this race, we are in completely uncharted territory for Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary. Throw out the playbook. This is total insanity.
Francesca Hong has a clear lead in the primary — but voters are spooked by socialism
Hong has a very clear lead in this primary. Of the voters who have made up their mind in this race, she is winning about half of them. In a larger field like this, where a candidate could win with a plurality — as Tony Evers did with about 42% in 2018 — gaining that much of a vote share is significant.
She’s dominant among younger voters. In the 18-29 age group, 43% of voters back Hong (to 14% for Barnes), and in the 30-44 group, it’s fairly similar, with 37% backing Hong to just 12% for Barnes — and no other candidate above 6% among either age group. She owns the Gen Z and Millennial vote.
She is also way out in front among middle-income voters (those making between $50k and $100k), and has a nearly 40-point lead over any other candidate among non-religious voters (a fairly large group on the Democratic side of the aisle).
But this is not an insurmountable lead. Among the oldest voters (60+), she’s only polling at 9%. She polled behind both Barnes (15%) and Rodriguez (12%) among moderate voters (8%). And even in the turnout powerhouse in the Madison media market, which includes the district she represents, she has only a slight edge over Barnes (24% to 20%). All of these numbers are among voters only on the Democratic side.
The most concerning numbers for her campaign, though, lies within the democratic socialism of it all.
Democratic socialists polled with a net minus-30 among the broader electorate, with 55% of voters saying they have an unfavorable view of Democratic socialists. That includes dismal ratings among voters over 60 years old, a net minus-45. Among moderates, who tend to lean Democratic in Wisconsin, it’s net minus-36. Among independents, only 8% have a favorable view of Democratic socialists, to 57% unfavorable. These are brutal numbers. Democratic socialists are even seen with sizable net-negative numbers in the Madison media market (net minus-13).
It’s worth wondering how Hong’s campaign might look if she were to be running with nearly identical policies, but simply as a Democrat, instead of a democratic socialist. Because if you are a Republican campaign operative looking at these numbers, you have to be giddy at the opportunity to hammer the socialism factor for three months in the general election, if she does indeed become the nominee. There’s a reason the Republican Governor’s Association clearly wants her to be the candidate.
Pair this with the head-to-head edge vs. Tiffany that her Democratic primary competitors will inevitably argue over the next several weeks, and it’s not hard to see why her campaign has so many people worried. Because the conventional wisdom that socialism is a toxic descriptor in a purple state like Wisconsin does bear out in this poll.
However, numbers like that should suggest that she should be further behind in a head-to-head matchup against Tiffany. Being within the margin of error of being a 50-50 race in a state where socialism is viewed this negatively suggests that there is a path for her to win a general election. Hong actually leads Tiffany among moderate voters — 36% to 30%. And overall, among likely voters, it’s a dead heat.
Bleak as those socialism numbers are, the wild card still can’t be counted out. She could win. It’s a clear risk, but she could win.
Barnes polls best against Tiffany, but concerns lurk in echoes of 2022
Going into the Marquette poll, as I explained on the latest episode of the Wisconsin Politics Group Chat podcast, the number I was most interested in seeing was the one on Mandela Barnes. Unlike Crowley or Rodriguez, his status in the race remained unchanged.
Amid the peak discombobulation of the Rodriguez-Crowley drama late last week, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Jessie Opoien reported on remarks from a Democratic source who said, “From everything we've seen, this was Mandela Barnes's race to lose, and he’s been losing it.”
But those comments didn’t really bear out in this poll. His numbers are not declining. And, in what might be the Barnes campaign’s single most encouraging metric to date, he polled the best of any candidate in the head-to-head against Tiffany.
In that head-to-head poll, Barnes showed a significant lead among voters in the lowest income group (under $50k), 53% to Tiffany’s 30%, which is far better than Hong fared (44%-33%). Barnes leads Tiffany significantly among moderate voters (46%-22%), again, far better than Hong (36%-30%). Barnes has a slight edge against Tiffany with voters aged 30-59 (combining two groups), Hong polls slightly behind.
And yet, there is some trouble for Barnes in this poll, too. His overall net favorability is minus-8, with 26% viewing him favorably, and 34% unfavorably. That’s tied with Brennan for worst in the Democratic field.
Even among “liberal” and “very liberal” voters, there are not insignificant numbers of voters who view him unfavorably (15% and 16%, respectively). That’s not true of Hong, who polled with 7% unfavorable among liberal and only 1% unfavorable among very liberal voters.
Regionally, Barnes polls quite poorly in the Green Bay / Appleton media market, a net minus-25 favorability rating. In that head-to-head against Tiffany, even as he leads overall, he gets walloped in that same market, 51% to 33%. To be fair, Hong’s numbers are similarly poor in northeastern Wisconsin, but if part of a Barnes case is to have broader statewide appeal, it’s not showing up in what I consider one of the most critical parts of the state for Democrats.
It’s also hard not to see some echoes of Barnes’ poll numbers from four years ago, when he polled well in the summer in his race for U.S. Senate, only for those numbers to quickly turn once the Republican attack machine dialed up. It would be worth worrying if he’d similarly struggle in the spotlight once again.
But he can now make a case on electability against the frontrunner in this race. That’s important.
It looks like it’s over for Kelda Roys, Joel Brennan
In this analysis, comparing the numbers of Barnes and Hong and Rodriguez as shown in this survey, I have not yet mentioned two other candidates — Kelda Roys and Joel Brennan. There’s a reason for that. Despite hundreds of thousands of dollars spent from their respective campaigns, they are still barely registering in this poll.
Roys gained 1% and Brennan polled at 2%. Sorry to say, but this is the end of the road for both of these campaigns.
Yes, there are still many undecided voters. Yes, a moderate lane is still very much open. But it is clear that neither of these candidates are winning it.
Unlike Rodriguez and Crowley, the respective statuses for Roys and Brennan did not change at any point in this poll, and they still are not breaking through. Neither are even known by more than three-fourths of Democratic voters — 78% for Roys; 82% for Brennan — and if that didn’t happen after months of campaigning, it’s hard to see how that changes in a matter of weeks. There have been no reports of a big-name endorsement of a massive influx of campaign funds for either candidate. It doesn’t seem like the cavalry is coming.
It’s not just that these percentages are small for each of them, too. It’s the total number of people saying they would support these candidates. Out of a sample size of 430 Democratic primary voters, only six total people say they support Roys, and only seven say they support Brennan. And out of 226 women polled, zero — zero — say they would vote for Brennan. I don’t recall ever seeing anything like that for a Democratic candidate before.
I do not see a path forward for Kelda Roys. I do not see a path forward for Joel Brennan. We’ll have more polling in a week (hopefully with fewer asterisks), but outside of a major shakeup — and hey, considering the last few weeks, can anything be ruled out at this point? — it looks like the end of the road for Roys and Brennan.
The moderate lane is still wide open and Tony Evers is still a very popular governor. Could the Crowley Hail Mary actually work?
The biggest X-factor going into the Aug. 11 primary is: Where will moderate voters break?
The poll shows that a whopping 60% remain undecided. For as well as she’s doing in the larger poll, Francesca Hong is not doing well with these voters, at just 8%. Brennan and Roys barely register. Barnes is the best in the field with this group, but only at 15%.
Rodriguez was at 12%, and without her in the race, the undecided number rises to 62%, with Barnes picking up the most voters, up six points to 21%.
But you know who happens to be extremely well liked among moderate voters in Wisconsin? Gov. Tony Evers.
He has a net +22 favorability rating among moderates, better than any politician surveyed in this poll. His approval rating is up. The surplus spending deal he proposed with Republican legislative leaders continues to have broad bipartisan support. I may have my issues with the governor from time to time when it comes to policy, but it is undeniable that he is the most popular state politician in Wisconsin.
This is what makes the Crowley re-entry Hail Mary to be especially intriguing. He has the endorsement of the most popular state politician at a moment when the moderate lane is wide open and many voters are undecided.
But, to be clear, this is a real longshot, and a wild gambit, and the most likely outcome is that this will not ultimately be successful. The Crowley campaign was not going particularly well in the months before he first dropped out. And as we’re already seeing with the “Dirk McGirt” story, he’s vaulted himself into a position that is going to invite a whole new level of scrutiny, and with the timing of all of this, every decision he and his campaign makes is going to be extremely critical.
But considering how popular the governor is, considering how many undecided voters there are, and considering how open the moderate lane is, there’s a non-zero chance this could actually work.
Trump posts his worst approval rating in the history of the Marquette poll
Meanwhile, as the Democratic primary hoovers up all the attention in the race — justifiably, of course — it is particularly notable that President Donald Trump just had his worst approval rating in the history of the Marquette poll, covering both of his terms in office.
