Attorney General James Doyle may have an edge over other Democratic candidates in next year’s election for state governor, but spokesmen for other Democratic candidates say it is too early to tell how the election will turn out.

A telephone poll released Friday by political news service WisPolitics.com and Wood Communications Group said 42 percent of those who voted in the Democratic primaries support Doyle.

The poll showed 12 percent favored U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett, D-Milwaukee, 9 percent favored Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk and 1 percent favored state Sen. Gary George, D-Milwaukee.

Spokesmen for the candidates said that, despite their lax in the polls, they are pleased with the results and their campaign strategies will not be affected by the poll.

Thad Nation, deputy campaign manager for Doyle, said he is pleased with the poll results but there is still a lot of time before the election.

“Obviously we are very pleased with the poll,” Nation said. “We think that this confirms what we have said all along — that Doyle is the strongest candidate for the Democratic Party — but like any poll it is a snapshot of popular opinion.”

Nation said strong poll results this early benefit the campaign by encouraging people to start thinking about the candidates, but acknowledged that predicting elections is difficult at this point.

“We have been running this election like we are 10 points behind,” Nation said. “But there is still a lot of time before the election, and the

George Twigg, spokesman for Barrett, said it is too early to determine election results but said the recent poll results will not effect the campaigning.

“This is not going to affect what we are going to be doing in the next few months,” Twigg said. “The election is still 10 months away and we are not going to be doing anything different; we are still going to continue on.”

Tom Russell, campaign manager for Falk, said they are encouraged by the poll because it shows the campaign is moving in the right direction.

“We are actually pretty pleased with the results,” Russell said. “Kathleen has only been campaigning for a couple months; to have 10 percent of the state know her name is a great beginning.”
Russell said the poll results will not affect Falk’s campaign strategy.
The poll also showed that of those who voted in the Republican primary and planned to do so again, 69 percent favored Gov. Scott McCallum while eight percent supported state Sen. Robert Welch of Redgranite.
The poll surveyed 600 people from Oct. 19-25 and has a 4 percent margin of error. Of those surveyed, 21 percent said there were undecided about who they would vote for in the general election.