A poll released Oct. 19 by St. Norbert's College Survey Center tracking the various state races reveals about a 7 percentage-point disparity when compared to other recent polls.

The poll of 400 likely voters taken from Oct. 9-16 shows Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle with a 51 to 38 percent lead over his challenger, U.S. Rep. Mark Green, R-Wis., with Green Party candidate Nelson Eisman receiving 1 percent. The survey was partially funded by Wisconsin Public Radio and had a 5 percent margin of error.

The St. Norbert's poll produced results inconsistent with a survey of 600 likely voters conducted by WISC-TV from Oct. 2-4 that shows Doyle up 6 percent. And a Wisconsin Policy Research Institute survey of 600 likely voters conducted from Sept. 20-21 gave Doyle a 5 percent advantage, with a 4 percent margin of error.

With all the discrepancies, University of Wisconsin political science professor and polling expert Charles Franklin said it is unwise to compare polls conducted by different organizations when gauging a candidate's progress.

"The best solution is to produce some kind of average or special tendency of the polls," he said. "You recognize the variation above and below that average, and then you look at the average rather than the changes of the individual polls."

Franklin added that polls are not an exact science and that the differences in St. Norbert's results are not abnormal, despite the research group's lack of experience.

"Things like that happen in polling, that you get an unusual result," he said. "It doesn't mean that St. Norbert's is by any means deliberately biased against Green or for Doyle."

Green spokesperson Mike Prentiss said the St. Norbert's poll is not a reliable indicator of where the race actually stands.

"Everything we see and hear out there has this race as a dead heat," Prentiss said. "It's safe to say that two weeks out, Jim Doyle and Mark Green are effectively tied."

Prentiss added that the small sample size of the St. Norbert's poll and the long time period over which they conducted the survey is the reason Green was shown to be 13 percentage points behind.

Anne Lupardus, deputy press secretary for Doyle's campaign, said the governor feels confident about where he is, but she noted that the campaign cannot rely too heavily on the results of any one poll.

"Polls are going to be all over the place over the next two weeks, so the governor is going to stay focused on issues that are most important to Wisconsin families," Lupardus said.

According to Franklin, voters are not influenced that much by polls this late in the election cycle.

"Contributors might be influenced by the polls, and maybe the enthusiasm of your party's voters is influenced by the polls," Franklin said. "But there's not much evidence that voters go out and read the latest polls and use that to decide who they're going to vote for."

In anticipation of the Nov. 7 general election, the St. Norbert's poll also shows Democrat Kathleen Falk with a 44 to 38 percent lead over Republican J.B. Van Hollen in the attorney general's race. And support for the death penalty advisory referendum outweighed those opposed to the measure by 5 percent, while support for the gay marriage amendment was 51 percent to 44 percent opposed.