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How might the debate performances of the candidates move the needle in the fifty three-day sprint to election day?
We asked Marquette University Law School poll director Charles Franklin out this week with his latest survey and hi, Charles
Good to be here. So your latest survey was in the field before the debate
But does a successful performance move the needle for a candidate?
I think historically less and less recently than it did in the past
I think good perspective is Joe Biden had an absolutely
Terrible debate and he only lost about four percentage points in the polls before he dropped out
So I think expecting a debate bump of any kind
Three four or five points would be wildly out of line with what the last debate did a point or two
Maybe but it may also help bring people home to their parties
More solidify the votes for both sides
So your poll was in the field immediately following the Democratic Convention and we did see some movement for Kamala Harris
With 52% to 48% for Harris over Donald Trump. How does that compare to your polling last month?
Yeah, that was a couple of points up for Harris and a point down for for Trump
So not much movement remember the margin of errors 4.6
So each of those moves is is modest compared to the margin of error
But it does reinforce the idea that Harris had a pretty good convention and that that showed up in this poll
It's also your first poll with VP candidate Tim walls
On the ticket. What kind of favorability does he have and does he factor into this of the four
Presidential and vice presidential walls is the only one with a net positive favorability plus six more
Favorable than unfavorable, but he also has the largest don't know at 19% that don't know enough about him yet
And so
Initially the reaction is strong. We asked the same question of walls that we asked about JD Vance
Do you think he's an excellent good fair or poor choice among Democrats?
90% think walls is an excellent or good choice among Republicans
It was 75% that said the same thing about JD Vance the week after that convention
So both parties are quite satisfied with their VP nominees Democrats a little bit more
Let's take a look at the Wisconsin US Senate race among registered voters
It's 52% for Tammy Baldwin to 48% for Eric hubdy. Now this has tightened a little it has tightened a little
The range over recent polls has been between about a four-point Baldwin lead and about a seven-point lead
It was closer to five last time. So just a smidgen closer. One thing that's happened is hubdy has been getting better and better known
Only 22% still say they haven't heard enough about him now. That was 80% in January
And he this time he made a little bit of progress on the favorable unfavorable dimension
He's still not negative, but he's a little better than he was last month
One thing that stood out to me in your polling on this particular race was that
Independence favor Baldwin by 65% to hubdy's 33% the caution here is
Independence are a fairly small sample. They're only about six or eight percent of the public
So there's a lot of margin of error there
But what we have seen consistently is
Independence were favoring Trump while Biden was still in they came to about evenly divided last month this month
They're pretty strongly favoring both sets of Democrats Harris and Baldwin
I would be very cautious about thinking this is a permanent position
Because of the sample size and because independence or independence
They do change their minds and they can be so critical in the last week or two of the campaign
Making up their minds late. Let's talk about enthusiasm to vote in your poll. This also stood out
72% of Democrats say they are very enthusiastic to vote compared to 63% of
Republicans now how have these numbers shifted they've changed tremendously
Back in the spring and through the point where Biden dropped out
Republicans were 10 to 15 points or even 20 points at one stage ahead of Democrats in enthusiasm
In July when Biden dropped out in Harris had just gotten in the race
We saw Democrats closed the gap and almost catch up to Republicans
This month Democrats have pulled clearly ahead. I should add Republicans got more enthusiastic after their convention, too
So it's not like they were lacking enthusiasm. They gained as well, but they've helped steady this month while Democrats continued to rise
What are the kinds of events that factor in?
Particularly to enthusiasm. Well, I think the biggest thing is simply the change of candidates that Joe Biden is still
Quite unpopular in the state only 41% approve of the job he was doing and that was a tremendous drag on Democrats and boost to Republicans
With him out and Harris having had a good stretch
News-wise and presentation-wise. I think that is a big part of this shift
I'm talking about issues the top three for Wisconsin respondents were the economy abortion and immigration
With of course the economy being kind of way outside
But there's a sharp partisan split in who cares about what issues it's gigantic now
All three partisan groups Republicans, independents and Democrats put the economy either first or second. So that's very high for everybody
Democrats put abortion as their top issue, but independents put it way down as an important issue and for Republicans
They put immigration as the second highest issue, but independents put that quite a ways down
So if you think about trying to appeal to those undecided or independent voters
The economy is the place where everybody cares and then you've got two issues that really appeal to the bases of each party
But don't seem to appeal that much to independents. All right, Charles Franklin. Thank you very much for your work. Thank you
It's the economy yeah, I know I know
Yeah, I think the deep thing there is is Harris's middle-class
Argument, you know
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