Late Polls Find Walker Is Still Favored (NY Times analyst admits Walker has 95% chance of winning)

New York Times ^ | 06/03/2012 | Nate Silver

[SeekAndFind]

Two polls released over the weekend suggest that Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a Republican, remains the clear favorite to win Tuesday’s recall election.

Although the contest is fairly close, polls of gubernatorial races are ordinarily quite reliable in the late stages of a race. We have not officially released a forecast for the race, but Mr. Walker’s lead of about six points would translate into almost a 95 percent chance of victory if we used the same formula we did to evaluate gubernatorial races in 2010, which derives its estimates from the historical accuracy of gubernatorial polls over the past 15 years.

One of the new polls over the weekend, from Public Policy Polling, which conducts polling on behalf of Democratic clients as well as publishes its own polls independently, showed a somewhat tighter race, with Mr. Walker’s Democratic opponent, Mayor Tom Barrett of Milwaukee, having closed his deficit to three percentage points. However, the firm has showed somewhat more favorable results for Mr. Barrett than other polling firms, and this reflected a relatively minor change from the firm’s previous poll, which had Mr. Walker ahead by five percentage points.

At the same time, the Public Policy Polling survey had Mr. Walker at 50 percent of the vote and had very few undecided voters. The presence of undecided voters tends to correlate with higher unpredictability on Election Day, while the absence of them, as in this case, means that even a small lead is more likely to hold up.

Another poll from We Ask America, which is a subsidiary of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association and often shows Republican-leaning results, had a larger lead, 12 points, for Mr. Walker. There had been no change from the firm’s prior poll, which also had Mr. Walker 12 points ahead.

[yooper]

If Walker wins by one point, he wins. And then the liberals need to pay for this nonsense, every one of them, and every registered democrat, in dollars. The conservative taxpayers of Wisconsin should not have been forced to pay for this transparent horse manure.

[cynwoody]

1. Turnout.
2. Turnout.
3. And finally, most importantly, turnout.

Unions are supposed to be good at turnout. However, according to the Wall Street Journal:

Wisconsin membership in the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees—the state's second-largest public-sector union after the National Education Association, which represents teachers—fell to 28,745 in February from 62,818 in March 2011, according to a person who has viewed Afscme's figures. A spokesman for Afscme declined to comment.

Much of that decline came from Afscme Council 24, which represents Wisconsin state workers, whose membership plunged by two-thirds to 7,100 from 22,300 last year.

Walker made withholding union dues from an employee's paychecks up to the employee.

[Eva]

From the WA Times article:

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department announced today that it will monitor elections on June 5, 2012, in the following jurisdictions to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and other federal voting rights statutes: Alameda, Fresno and Riverside Counties, Calif.; Cibola and Sandoval Counties, N.M.; Shannon County, S.D.; and the city of Milwaukee.

[txhurl]

The force is strong with this one.

[randita]

If it’s a close Walker win, I hope Dems squeal like stuck pigs all the way to November. It would not help Obama to have them throwing hissy fits, esp. if they occupy the capitol again with those incessant beating drums.

[presently no screen name]

BUMP!!

[profit_guy]

I’m not up to speed on the 4 GOP senators up for recall, does anybody have any opinion on that? (we need all 4 to retain control of the WI senate)

[oyez]

Walker made withholding union dues from an employee's paychecks up to the employee.

I know. Isn't that grrr-eat?