The Recombobulation Area is a ten-time Milwaukee Press Club award-winning weekly opinion column and online publication written, edited and published by veteran Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer. Learn more about it here.
The Marquette University Law School Poll is the state’s gold standard of measuring where voters stand, so here at The Recombobulation Area, we take a close look at each new poll.
It’s been more than eight months since the last iteration of the Marquette University Law School Poll was released. Much has changed in Wisconsin’s political landscape since then.
In that last poll, Tony Evers and Tim Michels were deadlocked in the gubernatorial race and Ron Johnson had a slight edge over Mandela Barnes. There was no poll for the Spring Election and the race for Wisconsin Supreme Court (as we discussed with poll director Charles Franklin at the time).
Now, this poll is effectively the first of the 2024 campaign cycle, with the Republican presidential primary and the Senate primary in the mix. And policy topics included several relevant to the state budget, and other top issues for the year, including the shared revenue deal.
(And yes, because of the holiday weekend and such, this piece is recapping a poll released more than a week ago. We’ve checked around and determined: We’re fine with that.)
So, let’s get into it. Let’s recombobulate.
1. Tony Evers is a very popular governor
Just over a year ago, I wrote about Tony Evers’ approval rating, noting that the +9 net positive in the March 2022 poll was a better margin than any of Scott Walker’s in the Marquette poll’s history.
In the months that followed, the typical partisanship of a heavily contested — and relentlessly negative — election cycle pulled those approval rating numbers to more of an even split. But now that the campaign ads aren’t flooding the airwaves and the governor is governing, his approval rating has shot up.
Tony Evers approval rating:
Approve: 57%
Disapprove: 39%
That net +18 approval rating is a huge number for the governor of a 50-50 purple state. It really speaks to just how popular “Two-term Tony” is now in Wisconsin.
So where is his approval rating the strongest? Let’s take a look at those crosstabs.
There’s a huge gender gap in Wisconsin politics, with men typically favoring Republicans and women typically favoring Democrats. That’s apparent here.
Tony Evers approval rating by gender:
Men: 51% approve - 46% disapprove
Women: 62% approve - 32% disapprove
Other subsets where Evers has an approval rating north of 60% includes voters in the 18-29 and 30-44 age groups, people making under $40,000 annual income, independents and moderates. In Milwaukee City and County and in the Madison media market, his approval rating is over 70%, and he has a net positive rating in the Green Bay media market (+23!) and in the north and west parts of the state (+3).
In a state that sees as even a divide of political leanings as Wisconsin, these are remarkably strong approval ratings for the second-term governor. He might just be the state’s most popular politician right now.
2. The 2024 campaign begins
This poll essentially serves as the baseline for how we’ll be analyzing the 2024 election season and comparing numbers as the campaign unfolds. Key metrics here will include approval and favorability ratings for Democrats up for re-election next year like President Joe Biden and Sen. Tammy Baldwin as well as candidates in the increasingly crowded field in the race for president and the still-all-undeclared field to challenge Baldwin in the race for Senate.
The headline on the incumbents is that Joe Biden’s approval rating is a net negative (45% approve to 53% disapprove) and Baldwin’s favorability rating is a net positive (40% favorable to 37% unfavorable, with 22% with no opinion).
But high presidential approval ratings now seem of another era. According to Gallup, Trump never had an approval rating above 50% for his entire presidency, and Biden’s was only at that level for the first few months of his. In Wisconsin, Biden’s approval rating has been between 40% and 45% since the October 2021 Marquette poll. Likewise for Trump, his approval rating was remarkably consistent throughout this presidency, never below 41% and never above 48%.
The approval rating metric can still be useful for other offices (see: point No. 1 in this very column!), but after so many years of this with presidents from both parties, I do question whether or not it is still a useful metric.
For Baldwin, her favorability rating is a slight net-positive, about where it has been for years. In what was essentially the first Marquette poll of the 2018 election cycle, numbers were nearly identical (40% fav, 35% unfav, 21% no opinion).
And in contrast, in the first poll of the 2022 election cycle, Ron Johnson had a net-negative favorability rating (minus-7). He did not have a single positive favorability rating throughout the midterm election campaign, when he was re-elected by a 1% margin. Baldwin continues to be one of the state’s most popular politicians and I don’t anticipate that changing anytime soon.
But that’s not really where the interest lies among the poll results relevant to these two races…
3. This is a pretty good poll for Ron DeSantis. But…
This is the first time Marquette has polled the field for the 2024 Republican presidential primary, and since the RNC will be right down the road from the Law School here in the city of Milwaukee, this is one we’re going to be paying particularly close attention to.
Donald Trump is still the overwhelming favorite in national polls, DeSantis’ campaign has been flat or on a downward trend since his botched campaign announcement on Twitter, and in Wisconsin, Trump still has strong favorability among Republicans.
But as he’s faltered elsewhere, DeSantis polled essentially even with Trump in Wisconsin. He also polled better in head-to-head matchups with Biden (for a hypothetical general election matchup) and with Trump (in a two-candidate primary matchup).
Here are those numbers. We’ll start with the overall GOP primary, and get into some of the interesting crosstabs along the way.:
Donald Trump: 31%
Ron DeSantis: 30%
Mike Pence: 6%
Tim Scott: 5%
Nikki Haley: 3%
Vivek Ramaswamy: 3%
Undecided: 21%
We mentioned the state’s large gender gap early in this breakdown, and it’s also apparent here. Republican women voters have Trump with a larger lead (37% to DeSantis’ 23%) and Republican men at this stage favor DeSantis (36% to 26%). No other candidate is in double digits with men or women.
Among “moderate” GOP voters, Trump and DeSantis are essentially even. Tim Scott is the only other candidate in double-digits there (he’s at 10%). Regionally, DeSantis does best in the “rest of Milwaukee media market,” where he’s at 43% to Trump’s 22%, while Trump does far better in the Green Bay (Trump 42% to DeSantis 15%) and “rest of north and west of state” (Trump 42% to DeSantis 23%) media markets.
Next, the head-to-head with Biden, comparing Trump and DeSantis:
Trump: 38%
Biden: 48%DeSantis: 43%
Biden: 45%
Obviously, much better for DeSantis in this matchup.
And in a hypothetical two-candidate Republican primary, DeSantis holds a significant lead.
Trump: 41%
DeSantis: 57%
There, DeSantis gets a significant boost with his popularity with men, 65% to Trump’s 35%. The Florida governor is also way ahead with the top income group of those making more than $75,000 per year — 66% to Trump’s 33%.
DeSantis also does similarly well in the “rest of Milwaukee media market,” again with support of about two-thirds of voters. And again, Trump does better in Green Bay/Fox Valley and in northern and western Wisconsin.
These early results show that DeSantis is more of the favored candidate of the what had been the traditional typical Republican base in Wisconsin — suburban men of higher incomes. But as the party has shifted to find more rural, non-college support under Trump, can DeSantis make inroads outside of this pre-2016 “base”? That remains to be seen. It’s early, of course.
And while this is indeed a relatively strong poll for DeSantis, his favorability rating still isn’t great, at a net minus-15, with only 33% of voters holding a favorable opinion of the Florida governor. Regionally, the only area where he has a slight net-positive favorability rating is in those Milwaukee suburbs (41%-38%).
This will be something to watch with DeSantis, especially considering the other recent Republican candidates who succeeded in the suburbs but failed to connect statewide (see: Rebecca Kleefisch and Jennifer Dorow). What he’s facing in Wisconsin could be a microcosm of his larger challenges in the primary race against Trump.
4. The Senate field shows Wisconsin Republicans’ thin bench
With this effectively being the first poll of the 2024 campaign, it offers our first look at how the field is shaping up in the race to become the Republican nominee to challenge Tammy Baldwin. And what it reveals is that the GOP has an especially thin bench.
The four candidates polled by Marquette are Congressman Tom Tiffany, former sheriff David Clarke, Madison area CEO Eric Hovde, and Congressman Mike Gallagher.
Franklin said that Gallagher announced his decision not to run the day they began polling, but despite being the favored candidate of party leadership, Gallagher polled poorly, with more than 70% of voters not even having an opinion on him.
None of these potential candidates had especially strong name recognition in this poll. More than 80% don’t have an opinion of Hovde, more than 70% don’t have an opinion of Tiffany, and more than 50% don’t have an opinion of Clarke.
Clarke was the only candidate that voters seemed to know much about at all, and his favorability number was actually a slight net positive (25%-23%). That notoriety drops off considerably outside of the Milwaukee area, though. In the Green Bay market, about 65% of voters don’t have an opinion of the disgraced former sheriff, and in northern and western Wisconsin, almost 75% of voters don’t have an opinion of him. In Milwaukee City and County, where Clarke served as sheriff from 2002 to 2017, he has his biggest net unfavorable number in any region – minus-15 (32% favorable - 47% unfavorable).
Tiffany has emerged as one of the most likely candidates, something we’ve been talking about here at The Recombobulation Area for some time now. But he does not have much name recognition at all, and only 12% of voters statewide have a favorable opinion of the 7th District representative who is now serving in his second full term. He is more well known in the northern and western part of the state, in and around the district he represents — only 50% in the “no opinion” camp there — but in the Milwaukee media market and Green Bay media market, more than 80% of voters don't have an opinion of him.
It’s early. None of these candidates have declared. The primary is more than a year away. But name recognition is a big deal in primaries and the fact that David freaking Clarke is way ahead of the field in name recognition should be concerning for Republicans. Most Senate races around the country have declared candidates at this point. Wisconsin Republicans are behind in more ways than one.
These bleak numbers for these potential candidates only further reinforce my perception of this race, that while any statewide race in Wisconsin should be considered a toss-up, Baldwin being a strong candidate and the Republican bench being this thin should make the Democratic incumbent the clear favorite.
5. Shared revenue made the poll!
I love when the Marquette poll looks at specific issues in Wisconsin. Policy questions are always fascinating, but unlike polling on broader topics, this is really targeted at a very specific issue in Wisconsin, one that we have taken particular interest in here at The Recombobulation Area.
The topline number is that an overwhelming majority of Wisconsinites backed increasing shared revenue to counties and municipalities – 70% in favor, 20% opposed.
Support here does take on a more partisan tone, as those identifying “very conservative” are the only group that does not have majority support (49%-49%), and support for more shared revenue increases the more liberal the group (87%-5% for “very liberal” voters). Republicans were somewhat split on this – 53% in favor, 39% opposed – while Democrats backed the increase 85% to 6%.
So much for Republicans being the self-proclaimed “party of local control.” That is an issue that clearly has more support on the left in this state.
The poll also asked about allowing sales tax increases, asking whether “you favor or oppose legislation that would allow cities and counties to increase sales taxes to be used for local government programs?” The majority here was opposed – 53% to 43%. This was a very Milwaukee-specific piece of the larger shared revenue deal, and voters in the the City and County support the option to increase (52%-48%), while suburban voters are among those most opposed (36%-59%).
Tension between the suburbs and the city has been high this year, and a poll result like this is emblematic of how that tension can manifest in policy. But the reality has been that without a sales tax increase, the City and County would be facing massive across-the-board cuts to local government – a situation largely caused by Republican austerity policy at the state level throughout much of the 2010s.
This gets at one of the inherent paradoxes of many results in policy-specific polling, where people often want strong public programs, but don’t always like the manner in which they are funded.
“In all of our polling for a decade,” Franklin said in his remarks unveiling the poll, “people love getting ‘stuff’ and they’re really reluctant to pay for it.”
Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. He’s also written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 17 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.
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#BucksInSix
Fascinating discussion--thank you!