A Rasmussen Report Poll released Friday shows Republican candidates Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker and businessman Mark Neumann leading Democratic candidate Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in the 2010 race for Wisconsin Governor.
The poll finds Walker leading Barrett 48 percent to 38 percent, and Neumann leading Barrett 42 percent to 38 percent.
“Wisconsin families are ready to take back their government and are flocking to Scott Walker’s plan to get our state back to work through low taxes, less government, and more freedom,” Walker’s Campaign Manager Keith Gilkes said in a statement.
Neumann said he is pleased by the poll’s findings and thinks it is a reflection of the Main Street tours he has been conducting around the state.
“People are responding to the message of I’m running,” Neumann said. “I’m a private sector business person running against a career politician who’s presiding over a city that used to be one of best in the nation and now has lost jobs second only to Detroit.”
According to University of Wisconsin Political Science professor Charles Franklin, polls can give a good sense of what public perception is regarding certain candidates.
Franklin said Rasmussen used a telephone survey to conduct the poll, which means they bought a random sample of telephone numbers from across the state and a machine prompted people to press “one” or “two” depending on how they felt about a candidate.
Certain issues may arise when a company uses a machine in a telephone survey, because federal law prohibits machines to call cell phone numbers. That means that for this poll, Rasmussen could only contact people with landlines, which may slightly skew against young and poor people, populations that usually only have cell phones.
Franklin said he is not surprised both of the Republican candidates are doing better in the poll.
“Now is not a really happy time for Democrats, and national opinions are filtering over into state opinion, so in that sense I believe the differences are probably real as opposed to some fluke of the poll,” Franklin said.
Barrett’s relatively late entrance into the race and the fact he is not well known outside Milwaukee may be part of the reason his numbers are so low, added Franklin.
Phillip Walzak, spokesperson for Barrett’s campaign, said the most important issue for Barrett right now is job creation.
“He’s focusing on getting Wisconsin’s economy turned around,” Walzak added. “He’s getting out across the state, communicating his message and sharing his vision.”
According to Franklin, Rasmussen polls generally tend to run four or five percentage points more Republican than other surveys, which may partially account for the high numbers the Republican candidates are seeing.
“The bottom line is that there are fairly good reasons for why Republicans would be doing well. It would be a mistake to dismiss these results,” Franklin said. “On the other hand, you’d be out of your mind to place any bets on the outcome based on a poll this far away from the election. They’re all still in striking distance of each other.”
