Senator’s ratings down in new poll
Seven months into President Joe Biden’s term, 49% of Wisconsin voters approve of the job he’s doing and 46% disapprove, according to a new poll by the Marquette University Law School.
Biden’s rating on handling COVID-19 — 54% — is higher than his overall approval, while his approval on the economy is lower at 46%.
This is Marquette’s first statewide survey since October of last year and the first of Biden’s presidency.
The new survey also offers a window into the political fortunes of two Wisconsin politicians whose jobs are on the 2022 statewide ballot: Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Republican US Sen. Ron Johnson.
Johnson’s popularity ratings have dipped in the new poll: 35% of registered voters view him favorably, and 42% view him unfavorably (another 23% have no opinion).
That is down from his ratings last October when 38% viewed him favorably and 36% viewed him unfavorably. Johnson’s latest ratings are also more negative than his average long-term polling numbers. Over the course of Marquette’s 2020 polling, an average of 36% of voters viewed Johnson favorably and 33% viewed him unfavorably. During the 2018 election year, an average of 40% viewed him favorably and 32% viewed him unfavorably.
“There has been some slippage” for Johnson, said Marquette pollster Charles Franklin. “Both independents and Democrats moved noticeably in a more negative direction toward Sen. Johnson while his Republican base stayed pretty solid for him.”
Whether this turns out to be a blip or a trend won’t be known for a while. The GOP senator has not announced whether he plans to run for a third term next year, but a large Democratic Senate field has already formed. The fight over Johnson’s seat is expected to be one of the fiercest in the country in 2022.
Asked about Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, 40% viewed her favorably and 39% unfavorably.
In the new survey, 50% of Wisconsin voters approve of the job Evers is doing and 43% disapprove. Those numbers are identical to Evers’ ratings in Marquette’s final pre-election poll last October, though they are down from his peak 2020 ratings.
On handling COVID-19, 54% approve of the governor’s performance and 39% disapprove. Those ratings are slightly better than the ones Evers received last fall.
In this survey, 807 registered voters in Wisconsin were polled. The overall results have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points. The poll was conducted Aug. 3-8.
Voters were also surveyed about their views of former President Donald Trump: 37% viewed him favorably, down from 44% in Marquette’s last 2020 poll when Trump was still in office.
Asked about Trump’s effect on the GOP, 60% of Republican voters thought he changed the party for the better, 12% for the worse and 25% said he hadn’t changed it much either way. Views of Trump’s impact on the GOP were very negative among independents and Democrats.
On the 2020 election, about twothirds of Wisconsin voters said they were confident or “very confident” the votes were counted accurately in this state, while 30% said they were not at all confident or not very confident.
But the partisan divide here was enormous, as Franklin noted: while 97% of Democrats were confident about the accuracy of the count in Wisconsin, only 28% of Republicans were.
Biden’s approval ratings in the new Wisconsin poll are similar to his average approval ratings nationally, where his numbers have declined somewhat since he took office but are still more positive than negative.
In the Marquette poll, Biden’s approval rating was 91% among Democrats, 48% among independents and 12% among Republicans.
Biden was viewed favorably by 49% of all registered voters and unfavorably by 45%. Those numbers are almost identical to Biden’s favorability ratings when Marquette polled last October just before the 2020 election.
The Wisconsin Legislature drew negative ratings in the poll, with 38% approving and 48% disapproving. Republican voters were only narrowly favorable toward the GOP-controlled body (45% approved, 43% disapproved), while 59% of Democrats disapproved.
The poll found distinct strains of pessimism in the electorate: just 38% of voters said things in Wisconsin are generally going in the right direction, and 51% said they were on the wrong track. Republican voters expressed the most negative views. The overall share of voters who said “wrong track” is higher in this survey than in most of Marquette’s polls in the last few years.
Only a third of voters said the government in Wisconsin (where power is divided between the parties) is working as intended, and 60% said it was broken. That sentiment was bipartisan: 60% of Democrats, 67% of Republicans and 54% of independents said “broken.”
Only 10% said government in Washington (narrowly controlled by Democrats) was working as intended and 84% said it was broken.
“That is a very depressing number,” Franklin said.
On various policy issues:
More than half (53%) of voters supported the infrastructure bill that was just passed on a bipartisan basis by the Senate, while 37% opposed it.
60% of voters said they were concerned or “very concerned” about illegal immigration.
43% said there was more crime in their community than a year ago and 22% said less.
51% supported raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour while 44% opposed it.
27% said the $300 boost in unemployment benefits was still needed while 67% said it was keeping people from returning to work.
49% said they were very concerned about inflation and an additional 36% said they were “somewhat concerned.”