Survey Suggests Democrats' Post-Convention 'Bounce' Is Gone
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
(WPR)---The races for president and U.S. Senate have tightened in Wisconsin, but Democrats continue to lead both contests according to the latest poll from Marquette University Law School.
Among self-identified likely voters, the poll showed Democrat Hillary Clinton leading Republican Donald Trump 45 percent to 42 percent in the race for president. That three point margin is a far cry from Marquette’s early August survey where Clinton led Trump by 15 percentage points.
In the race for U.S. Senate, Democrat Russ Feingold led Republican incumbent Ron Johnson by a similarly tight margin of 48 percent to 45 percent among likely voters. Feingold led Johnson by 11 percentage points in early August.
The margins for both races were also close among registered voters, with Clinton by five points and Feingold by four.
The survey sample included more people who said they leaned Republican compared to recent Marquette polls. It also came a month after the national political conventions, which gave Clinton a noticeable "bounce" in the earlier polls both here and nationally. Marquette pollster Charles Franklin said that convention bounce was now clearly gone.
"It’s not much of a surprise that we would see closer races, more competition," Franklin said.
Also notable in Marquette’s latest survey was how many Wisconsin residents view both Clinton and Trump negatively. Sixty-three percent of registered voters said they had unfavorable views of Trump and 58 percent said they had unfavorable views of Clinton. Along those same lines, just 26 percent of registered voters said "honest" describes Clinton while just 31 percent said it described Trump.
The poll included some good news for Gov. Scott Walker, at least relatively speaking. Forty-three percent of those surveyed approved of the job he’s doing compared to 49 percent who disapprove. While it was still a negative rating for the governor, it marked the first time Walker’s disapproval rating had dropped below 50 percent since 2014. Franklin said it was too early to tell whether this was the start of a trend for Walker or just an outlier.
Marquette’s survey results were released on the same day that Monmouth University in New Jersey released a poll showing Clinton leading Trump by five points among likely voters. Monmouth’s survey found Feingold leading Johnson by 13 points.
Marquette surveyed 803 registered voters from Aug. 25-28, which included 650 likely voters. Marquette’s margin of error for likely voters was +/- 5.0 points. Monmouth’s survey was conducted from Aug. 27-30 and included 404 likely voters with a margin of error of +/- 4.9 percent.
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