A new Marquette University poll of the Wisconsin gubernatorial race shows Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) leading Democratic challenger Mary Burke by 5 percentage points, his largest lead by that pollster since March.
The poll, released on Wednesday, found Walker leading Burke 50 percent to 45 percent among likely voters. Among registered voters Walker just barely leads Burke 46 percent to 45 percent.
The findings are some of the best Walker has enjoyed in a Marquette poll all year. The last time Walker’s lead was that big or larger was in late March when Marquette found Walker leading Burke among likely voters 48 percent to 41 percent. Since then the margin has been smaller.
The poll’s findings are some of the first that have come out since news broke that policy proposals on Burke’s campaign had been copied from other gubernatorial campaigns. Burke, on Tuesday, released a new ad that seemed to address the plagiarism incident.
In a statement, Burke Communications Director Joe Zepecki said the race is still too close to call.
“That this race remains too close to call shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Over the last 2 weeks Governor Walker has stepped up the mudslinging and false, negative attacks in a desperate attempt to distract from his failed record,” Zepecki said.
The poll was conducted among 801 registered voters and 585 likely voters between Sept. 25 and Sept. 28. The margin of error was plus or minus 4.1 percentage points for likely voters and plus or minus 3.5 percentage points among registered voters.
The TPM Polltracker average gives Walker a 1.6 point lead over Burke.
This post has been updated.
Whats going on in Wisconsin? Walker does the opposite of what he campaigned for and famously gets on the phone right away with a blogger from the left because he thought it was a Koch brother. He is such a corporate mouth piece. Wait till he gets that big open pit copper mine running those Wisconsin hunters and environmentalist with have some buyers remorse.
Near as I can figure, it’s all the Obama Effect – racist white blue collars that might have voted -D before switching over, others staying home. Wisconsin’s always been on the knife’s edge, for all its progressive reputation. 2010 just flipped it about five points to the Republicans’ side.
Oh, that, plus legally-sanctioned voter suppression.
OK Wisconsinites - the rest of us need an explanation. Just how the fuck can this be happening? What could you folks possibly see in this asshole?
Wisconsin, home of Bob La Follette. What a turnaround.