Public Policy Polling

Feingold-Walker race could be a nail-biter

Raleigh, N.C. – It may be hard to remember that Scott Walker, having already faced voters twice in two years, is still in his first term.  And looking ahead to his bid for re-election next fall, he continues to look slightly vulnerable on paper, depending on who Democrats throw at him.  Voters are split down the middle on Walker’s job performance, with 48% approving and 49% disapproving, but of six challengers PPP threw at him in its first 2013 Wisconsin poll, only one tops him, and barely: former Sen. Russ Feingold.

Feingold leads Walker, 49-47.  But Walker still has 46-48% of the vote against the other five, and leads them by margins of four to nine points: Ron Kind (46-42), Peter Barca (48-43), Jon Erpenbach (48-42), Steve Kagen (48-41), and Mahlon Mitchell (48-39).

Granted, Feingold is by far the best-known and best-liked option for Democrats.  53% of voters see him favorably, and only 37% unfavorably.  The 11% who cannot express an opinion on Feingold pales in comparison to the 55% (Kind) to 74% (Mitchell) who are unsure about the other Democrats.  So the shape of the horse races this far out tracks closely with the Democrats’ name identification.  Thus, though Walker starts at nearly 50%, a close race could still develop without Feingold if the eventual Democratic nominee is able to raise enough cash and, with it, his or her profile.  As it stands now, some of the candidates lead among voters who already are familiar with both them and the incumbent.  But the fact that Feingold leads by only two points despite his personal image being significantly superior to that of the governor’s means this will be a tough race for whoever emerges as the challenger.

Walker leads all but Feingold

Scott Walker's approval numbers have dropped since November. On our final pre election poll we found 51% of Wisconsin voters approving of him to 46% who disapproved. That's dropped now to 48% approval and 49% disapproval. The decline has come mostly with Democrats, who have gone from 15% approval of him down to 9%.

Nevertheless Walker leads all but one of the Democrats we tested against him. He's up 4 points on Ron Kind at 46/42, 5 on Peter Barca at 48/43, 6 on Jon Erpenbach at 48/42, 7 on Steve Kagen at 48/41, and 9 on Mahlon Mitchell at 48/39.

It's worth noting that none of these Democrats have particularly high name recognition. Out of this group Kind is the most well known at 45% name recognition, followed by Barca at 37%, Erpenbach and Kagen at 34%, and Mitchell at 26%. Most of the undecideds in these match ups are Democrats, meaning that if any of the match ups actually materialized they would probably get closer. Nevertheless, Walker is close to 50% in all of them and certainly showed himself to be a survivor last year.

The Democrat with the best shot at Walker- just as we found in all of our pre-recall election polling last year- would be Russ Feingold. Feingold has thoroughly rehabilitated his image after his 2010 loss and is now seen favorably by 53% of voters in the state to 37% with a negative opinion. That makes him more popular than any other major political figure in the state. He would start out leading Walker 49/47 in a hypothetical head to head, including a 52/42 lead with independents.