Indecision reigns in vote for governor [WI]

The first post-primary poll in the governor's race gives challenger Jim Doyle an edge over Gov. Scott McCallum, but it suggests support on both sides is soft, and 37% say they might change their mind before election day.

Doyle, the Democrat and state attorney general since 1990, had support from 43% of the registered voters questioned, leading McCallum, the Republican incumbent, who had support from 35%, the Badger Poll said.

Libertarian candidate Ed Thompson had 6% in the poll and Green Party candidate Jim Young had 1%. The remaining 15% were undecided, didn't have a response or chose another candidate on the Nov. 5 ballot.

The results were hailed by Doyle aides and criticized by McCallum advisers, though the lead pollster said the main message was that most voters haven't become engaged in the race, and many of those who have are undecided or willing to be swayed.

"The size of the lead is small enough, it could easily change," said Donald Ferree of the University of Wisconsin Survey Center in Madison. "It also suggests the candidates could make a huge difference by making a positive case for themselves or raising doubts about the other."

This installment of the Badger Poll was sponsored by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and The Capital Times of Madison. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. A total of 539 registered voters, nearly all of whom said they planned to vote in the election, were questioned between Sept. 17 and Wednesday.

That period of eight days is longer than in a typical political poll, meaning that some of the dynamics may have changed within that time. Ferree said, though, that there was not much variance in the results from day to day.

During that period, Doyle supporters ran few television ads - the campaign itself ran none - while McCallum and the state GOP launched a series of spots questioning Doyle's competence and saying he would raise taxes.

McCallum campaign manager Darrin Schmitz noted that during the primary, all three Democratic contenders - including defeated U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett of Milwaukee and Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk - ran ads critical of McCallum.

"That suggests McCallum can pick up enough of the undecideds and swing the election his way," Schmitz said. "We have just begun to convey to the voters of Wisconsin Jim Doyle's tax-and-spend record."

Doyle campaign director Bill Christofferson countered that the ad strategy by McCallum is not working. Doyle has said ads saying he will raise taxes are false.

"The good news for us is the voters of Wisconsin have seen through McCallum's lies and the unprecedented barrage of negative commercials," Christofferson said. "The voters clearly are ready for change."

Schmitz questioned some of the the techniques used in the poll, particularly the fact that it stretched over so many days.

"Any poll taken over eight days lacks a certain amount of credibility," he said.

The poll used a two-question approach to establish current support for the candidates, similar to but not the same as the traditional two-step process of asking whom respondents would back "if the election were held today," then following up with a "who are you leaning toward" question for those who were undecided.

In this poll, respondents initially were asked whom they planned to vote for Nov. 5.

Doyle was backed by 26%, McCallum 20%, Thompson 3%, Young 1% and the remainder - a whopping 50% - undecided, or naming another candidate.

Those who said they were undecided were then asked to state their current preference among the candidates. Of those, 34% named Doyle, while 31% named McCallum. Those responses were factored in with the first question to establish the 43% to 35% margin that was used as the poll's "horse-race" matchup result.

Throughout the questions, though, there were indications that the race, with more than five weeks to go, is still up for grabs:

Only 21% of those questioned said they had been paying a lot of attention to the race. Of the rest, 42% said they had been paying "some" attention, 28% "only a little" and 10% "none at all."

Once respondents stated a preference, 61% said they were "pretty sure" they would not change their mind, while 37% said they "might" change their mind before election day.

Of those questioned, 69% said they were certain to vote Nov. 5 and 25% said they probably would vote. More than half - 54% - said they thought it made "a lot" of difference who is elected governor this year. And more than 81% said they were either "very" or "somewhat" confident they will have enough information to make up their minds by election day. That, Ferree said, suggests people plan to become engaged in the election but have not yet had it at the top of their priority list.

"People are saying this will be a priority, but they haven't yet attended to it as if it were," he said.

One reason, Ferree said, may be that national and international political events, such as the war on terrorism and possible war with Iraq, may be crowding out some of the time people have to follow local political affairs.

For now, registered voters have a mixed view of the candidates, according to the poll.

The poll said 50% of women respondents backed Doyle, compared with 31% who supported McCallum. Among men, McCallum led 39% to 36%. Those breakdowns, though, carry a somewhat larger margin of error.

When asked to assess the performance of McCallum as governor, 6% of all those questioned said excellent, 29% said good, 40% said fair and 18% said poor.

McCallum, lieutenant governor for 14 years, has been governor since February 2001. He replaced Tommy G. Thompson, who took a job in the Bush administration.

A general benchmark for a job-performance question is that an incumbent wants to be above 50% when "good" and "excellent" are combined. For McCallum it was 35%.

When asked whether they had a favorable or unfavorable view of the candidates, McCallum and Doyle both had a 37% favorable rating. McCallum's unfavorable rating was 31%, compared with Doyle's 22%. The remainder - 33% for McCallum and 41% for Doyle - said they didn't know enough to say.

Ed Thompson, meanwhile, had a 15% favorable rating, with 26% unfavorable and 59% not knowing enough about him to state an opinion. Young, even less known, had 92% say they did not know enough about him to respond.

The presence of Thompson in the race could change the dynamics for the Democratic and Republican candidates.

For instance, if Thompson and the other minor party candidates attract 8% of the vote, the other candidates need to reach only 47% to become the winner.

Ferree said the poll indicates Thompson is hurting McCallum more than Doyle. When Thompson and Young were removed as options, and their supporters along with the undecideds were forced to choose between McCallum and Doyle, those respondents broke evenly between the two - 27% each, with some 10% saying neither and 35% saying they still didn't know.

The poll also asked respondents whether they were "more for" their candidate or "more against" the others.

On that question, 62% of McCallum supporters said they were more for McCallum, while 32% said they were more against the others. Of Doyle supporters, 49% said they were more for Doyle, while 41% said they were more against the others.

That could come into play as a measure of the intensity of support for the two candidates, though in a partisan contest the motivation of a voter to back a candidate doesn't matter as much as the fact that voter goes to the polls.

Poll Ping!

The Democrat, Doyle, leads this poll 43-35, which is actually a closer race than I was expecting. The last independent poll, taken before the primary, gave Doyle a 15-point edge in a hypothetical match-up. However, it's important to note that McCallum, the Republican, was running lots of ads during the time this poll was conducted, while Doyle was not.

McCallum will also be hurt by Ed Thompson, the Libertarian candidate. He is the brother of former governor Tommy Thompson, and has polled as high as 10% in some independent polls. He drew 6% in this one.

If you want on or off my poll ping list, let me know!

I'd be shocked if Doyle doesn't win and Ed Thompson is a big reason why. The other reason is because McCallum has made a lot of mistakes and his personality has turned people off.

Doyle tried to classify percussion caps as destructive devices and ban them. Doyle's a big time gun grabber, once the word gets out the numbers will change.

WCCA legislative alert: Doyle's anti-terrorism bill bans guns

Mc should be able to get some traction out of this. I posted some others, search for "WCCA".

In the interest of full disclosure, I neither work for WCCA any more nor will I vote for the liberal incumbent.

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