Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight compiles some of the tracking data on the nation’s governors. And it doesn’t look good:
As you can see, Governor Doyle has plummeted from his 49% pre-election 2008 approval rating, to 35% in late April. Currently, Doyle is only ahead of Paterson of New York and Schwarzenegger of California in the Governors listed in their poll. SurveyUSA gives us some of the internal numbers, which are interesting:
- Among males, Doyle’s approval rating drops to 29%, while his disapproval jumps to 66%. He continues to work his magic with the ladies, as 41% of women approve, and 53% disapprove.
- Doyle’s approval is highest among residents over 65 years old, at 41%.
- Homeowners approve of Doyle at a 32% rate, while renters approve at 41%. Ahh, the power of property taxes.
- Single people prefer Doyle over married people, 40% to 31%. Oddly, people who are widowed are crazy about Governor Doyle, with his approval rating at 48% among widowers. (You have to figure that at least 5% of those people offed their own spouse, so maybe they’re excited about Doyle’s early release plan.)
- Doyle’s approval rating among students, as expected, is its highest among any occupation. However, Doyle’s approval among the unemployed is shockingly low, at 22%. Perhaps the unemployed, a group in Wisconsin growing very quickly, are blaming the Governor for their current state. This would be a break from conventional wisdom, which says that the unemployed view Democrats and Democratic policies more favorably.
- Perhaps of most concern to Doyle is his low approval rating among his supporters. Only 53% of self-described liberals approve of Doyle’s job approval, while 43% disapprove. Whether any of those disaffected liberals would actually swing over and vote against Doyle seems like a long shot, but if they decided to stay home, it could damage his candidacy significantly.
The day after releasing the results of the Doyle poll, SurveyUsa released a similar poll gauging President Obama’s popularity in Wisconsin. As expected, Obama fares much better, with a 56% approval rating.
See the full Obama/Wisconsin results here.
This makes the upcoming election all the more interesting.
Comment by Aaron Rodriguez — May 7, 2009 @ 2:58 pm
[...] Christian Schneider of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute has hit up on many of the points of this poll, but let me just add a few points. [...]
Pingback by About That Doyle Cakewalk | Lakeshore Laments — May 7, 2009 @ 6:39 pm
[...] it would be possible for a Republican gubernatorial candidate to win in 2010. Why? As the the WPRI blog reviews a new poll, Doyle’s numbers are [...]
Pingback by Timing and the Governor’s Race | Conservative Young Professionals of Milwaukee — May 10, 2009 @ 10:10 am
Doyle is at least being recognized as a loser. Nothing new for a Wisconsin governor,though. So were his predecessors, the Republicans.
I can relax. I will be voting libertarian, as usual. Unless, of course, the Republicans wise up and run Scott Walker.
Then I will have to (ugh!) swing over and (ugh!) vote Republican. (ugh! ugh!) But Scott should be worth the pain. He is doing fine in Milaukee County.
But are the Republicans smart enough to give him their nomination?
Comment by OldPatriot.wi — May 12, 2009 @ 10:30 pm