In the August primary election, Wisconsin voters will choose a Republican to run against Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and a Democrat to run against Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson.
A new Marquette Law School Poll of 805 registered voters shows the Democratic U.S. Senate race has tightened between Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry.
Barnes was ahead of Lasry by 10 points in the last Marquette poll in February. But Lasry closed the gap to within the margin of error (6.6 points) in the April survey.
Nineteen percent of likely Democratic voters favored Barnes, and 16% favored Lasry. State treasurer Sarah Godlewski and Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson are in the single digits.
Poll director Charles Franklin pointed out that almost half of respondents are undecided.
"So a tightening of the race, but no evidence that people are making up their minds more — as much as either shifting around between candidates or, there's a fairly large margin of error here," Franklin said. "But it does look like a tighter race based on our data."
Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson has a negative favorability rating.
In the Republican gubernatorial race, former Lt. Gov Rebecca Kleefisch still has a significant lead over businessman Kevin Nicholson and State Rep. Tim Ramthun.
Construction company executive Tim Michels, who announced his candidacy this week, did not make it into the Marquette poll, which was conducted between April 19-24. Franklin said the next poll will indicate how big of a splash Michels can make in the race.
"There was still 46 or 48% undecided about that race, so there’s certainly an opening for someone new," Franklin said.
The candidate who advances from that primary will try to unseat Gov. Evers, who had a slight favorability rating in this survey.
Franklin wanted to test how confident Wisconsinites are in local elections. He asked about the April 2022 election, in which voters chose local officials like school board members and mayors. Eighty-four percent are confident or very confident in the election — a contrast to the 2020 presidential election, in which just 64% of respondents are confident.
"I think that maybe suggests that it's not about the elections or the way we're holding them," Franklin said. "It's about the argument of 2020 rather than really an underlying doubt about the way elections are conducted in this state."
The Marquette poll asked voters about five issues to gauge their concerns. Franklin said one clearly rose to the top.
"Far and away inflation is the biggest concern," he said. "Sixty-nine percent say they’re very concerned about that. That’s up from being in the 30s last summer. So big growth and easily the most concern of any issue."
Wisconsinites are also worried about public education, with half of respondents very concerned.
Along that line, a majority of voters said they favored expanding publicly-funded vouchers for private schools.
But there’s a disconnect between how voters feel about public education overall versus their local public schools. "Solid majorities for a long time have been pretty happy with the schools in their community," Franklin said. "I think this is where a discussion and debate about vouchers might play out, because ... would they remain supportive of vouchers if that meant reduced funding for public schools that they’re satisfied with in their area?"
Franklin said the pandemic was at the bottom of the list of voter worries, with less than a quarter very concerned.
