Tuesday is the general election for one race in the Wisconsin state Senate recalls. And now a new Daily Kos/Public Policy Polling (D) survey shows Democratic incumbent Dave Hansen set to steamroll his Republican opponent — thanks at least in part to some Republican blunders in the nomination of that particular candidate.
The numbers: Dave Hansen 62%, Republican nominee David VanderLeest 34%. The poll of 1,301 likely voters was conducted from July 15-17, and has a ±2.7% margin of error.
As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s district rankings show, this district voted for Scott Walker for governor in 2010 by a margin of 53.5%-44.9% — but before that, it voted for Barack Obama for president by 56.5%-42.1%. So this area does have the potential swing around, depending on turnout.
In a way, VanderLeest’s showing in this poll seems like an impressive, automatic Republican vote for a candidate who has been plagued by questions about his fitness for office, after revelations about his personal finances and reports of domestic violence (which included a plea of no-contest to two charges of disorderly conduct). VanderLeest also recently distinguished himself with the quote: “None of it’s true. I don’t smoke rocks, and that’s the truth.”
To be clear, VanderLeest was not the GOP’s preferred candidate. Instead, Republicans became stuck with VanderLeest after their originally recruited candidate, state Rep. John Nygren, failed to submit the required 400 valid petition signatures. Nygren submitted slightly over 400 signatures for himself — despite the fact that Republicans had been able to gather 18,000 signatures to trigger a recall — with not enough of a buffer for when a few them were disqualified. Nygren initially filed a lawsuit to get onto the ballot, but lost in court and announced he would not further appeal the decision.
The poll gives VanderLeest a favorable rating of 23%, with 63% unfavorable. By contrast, Hansen has a job approval rating of 59%, with a disapproval of 38%.
In addition, President Obama has an approval rating of 48%-46% — close, but a whole lot better than Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s rating of 41%-57%, a long way from Walker’s prior margin of victory there.
