A Marquette University Law School poll released Wednesday showed a huge shift in Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) direction and away from Democrat Mary Burke, finding him with a 7-point lead among likely voters.
The poll found Walker with 50 percent support while Burke got 43 percent support among likely voters. Two weeks earlier a Marquette University poll found the race tied with Walker and Burke getting 47 percent each.
So why the big change? Marquette explained it this way:
Re: changes in gov’s race, poll director Charles Franklin points to shifting turnout intentions as big factor in changes. #mulawpoll
— MULawPoll (@MULawPoll) October 29, 2014
In current poll, 93% of Repubs say they are “certain to vote.” 82% of Dems and 75% of independents say that. #mulawpoll
— MULawPoll (@MULawPoll) October 29, 2014
The latest Marquette University poll comes just a few days before Election Day.
The latest Marquette University poll was conducted from Oct. 23 to Oct. 26. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points for likely voters. The poll surveyed 1,164 likely voters and 1,409 registered voters.
Now, Walker has a 4.9 point lead over Burke according to the TPM Polltracker.
This post has been updated.
Shifiting turnout intentions? Does that mean all of a sudden there’s been a huge upswing in Republican voter’s intending to vote, or that have already voted via early voting?
Usually both, or that they are changing their likely voter screen. Basically at this point, the pollster is taking a guess on voter turn out and how stringent the voter screen needs to be to consider someone likely to vote.
Its a close race that will turn on getting out the vote.
Most polls are using the likely voter model from 2010—hence the repeated nonsense about Republicans having another “wave” election.
There is no way that this race has gone from more-or-less tied to a 7-point advantage for Walker.
The overall polling averages still show a near-tie.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. These “spot” polls are now rolling out from the “usual” right-leaning pollsters to try to “Work the Refs” and influence voters.
It’s just not possible to see such a large swing in a relatively stable, tight race like this.
The only reason to release something like this is to depress the Democratic turnout as much as possible by “demoralizing” them.
This is happening ALL OVER THE COUNTRY from the “usual suspects” in pollsters.
It is not a coincidence it is part of a plan by the RNC.
That was why I was puzzled as well. I couldn’t figure out any reason that all of sudden a tied race jumped so far in either direction unless they had results from early voting tabulated.