A lot can change in five months. That’s the moral of this month’s Marquette Law School Poll. The statewide poll surveyed 802 registered voters from February 22 to February 27.
Pollsters found that most primary candidates are not yet well-known. That includes Democrats aiming to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, and Republicans trying to take on Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
Wisconsinites are not quite glued to the important races coming up this fall in general elections yet, according to Dr. Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll.
“A lot of us follow these things obsessively and all the time,” admits Franklin. “But a lot of voters really don't tune in until later in the year. Name recognition, [or lack of it] then, right now is playing a big role in driving awareness of candidates and support for the candidates.”
But Franklin says name recognition can change over the course of the campaign, as campaigns advertise and send direct mail, and as voters begin to pay attention as the election approaches.
Franklin says the goal of the poll is not to try to forecast what the August primaries will look like. Instead, it’s to capture the broad picture of public opinion in Wisconsin.
That includes how Wisconsin votes see candidates, who they’re aware of, and how that changes over the next five months. But so many voters being undecided at this point is not unusual, he says.
“We saw this in 2018, when we had a really crowded Democratic gubernatorial field, that even in July, lots of people were still not familiar with some of the candidates or even most of the candidates,” Franklin says.
According to the poll, right now, Rebecca Kleefisch is the best-known GOP primary candidate for governor. However, half of voters can’t say if they have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of her.
Among Democratic primary candidates in the U.S. Senate race, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes is the best known, followed by Alex Lasry, although both are unfamiliar to more than 60% of registered voters,
So what are Wisconsin voters concerned about at this stage in the year?
“Not surprisingly, inflation tops the list,” says Franklin. “Fully 68% say they're very concerned about inflation. That was 64% in October and just 49% back in August of 2021.”
Franklin says inflation is always a challenge for an incoming president, and so that will also have some effect on the midterm elections nationally.
“Here in Wisconsin, people generally don't hold governors responsible for inflation,” he notes. “But if inflation is driving their views of the state of the state, the state of the country, then that can be damaging to an incumbent, especially an incumbent Democrat like Joe Biden."
Franklin says the problem with inflation from a political point of view is simply that presidents don't have a way to turn off the inflation valve. And the sanctions on Russia stemming from that country’s attack on Ukraine may well further exacerbate inflation by driving up energy prices, for example.
“So, I think inflation is one of those issues that no incumbent ever wants to face. And it's one that's sort of tailor made for the opposition party to make good use of in campaigns,” he says. “So, the question for Democrats generally, Biden specifically and to a lesser extent, Evers, is how do they show they're concerned about inflation, and find ways to make other issues more central to voters’ decisions, and less so for inflation?”
Franklin says one side note is that there are party differences among people who answered questions in the poll. Republicans say they're very concerned about inflation, Democrats are considerably less concerned.
“That's a clear example where actual inflation is the same for Democrats and Republicans alike. But you see Republicans seizing on the issue and ranking it as more important to them,” he says.
Franklin says he’s seen the reverse with the coronavirus. “Republicans have been less concerned about COVID, while Democrats have emphasized how concerned they are."
But Franklin says the dramatic fall in COVID cases in the state over the last few weeks has affected public opinion, beyond partisanship. This most recent poll asked people about how concerned they were about COVID in Wisconsin, with just 27% saying they were very concerned.
Past polling asked people about how concerned they were about COVID in the U.S. as a whole, but Franklin says those answers are instructive. Sixty-eight percent of people polled were very concerned in March of 2020.
“So, this is the potential for the coronavirus to become a less important political issue, if this trend continues, and presumably if the virus really does settle down to a much lower rate of infect infection and hospitalization and death,” he says.
The poll also asked voters for their opinion on legalizing marijuana. Franklin says the results show a seismic shift. Sixty-one percent of voters say they support marijuana legalization, 31%. were opposed. The numbers show across the board increases among voters in both major political parties.
“In March of 2014, just 29% of Republicans supported legalization, 66% were opposed. But in this poll, 51% of Republicans support legalization, 42% are opposed. So that's quite a shift within the Republican Party, which has in the past been pretty firmly opposed to moving legislation on this issue,” he says.
Among Democrats, support for the legalization of marijuana is up from 55% to 76%. Support among independents has also climbed from 38% to 60%.
The margin of error is +/- 3.8 percentage points for the full sample, but certain questions were asked of different half-samples and have up to +/-5.8 margins of error.
The next Marquette Poll is likely coming out sometime in April.
