understanding our efforts to bring you the positions of the candidates for State Supreme
Court and Governor in our weekly reporting on issues in the races.
A new Marquette Law School poll this week shows two-thirds of voters are undecided between
judges Chris Taylor and Maria Lazar in the April 7 election for Supreme Court.
Likewise in the large field of Democratic candidates and the lone Republican in the
race for Governor, which will be narrowed in an August primary, the poll shows no runaway
leader with most candidates not well known by voters.
Poll Director Charles Franklin joins us now and thanks for being here.
Good to be here.
So what does it say about voter engagement when roughly 66 percent of your respondents
don't know enough about the two Supreme Court candidates less than two months away?
I think it's first of all it is unusually low engagement this year.
It's not nearly as high as it was a year ago or in the gubernatorial races as it was in
say 2018 or 2022.
So we do seem a little less engaged right now.
Some of that is that the advertising has not really kicked in in the Supreme Court race
compared to where it was a year ago.
This time only six percent said they'd heard or read a lot about the Supreme Court race.
A year ago that was 39 percent at this same time in February.
So I think those things will pick up but we're getting started a bit slower than we did a
year ago.
I'll say.
In the governor's race most of the eight major candidates between 52 and 82 percent
who took your poll have not heard enough about them.
Of course former Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes is a little better known but should
anyone take stock in this kind of poll number at this point?
I think the stock you take is the disengagement that all of these candidates have work to
do introducing themselves to voters.
Mandela Barnes is the best known by a good bit followed by Tom Tiffany followed by Sarah
Rodriguez on the Democratic side.
But all of them have the chance to introduce themselves to voters over the next however
many eight months it is seven months till the primary.
But that will take time and often we see that in primaries people don't really tune in until
June.
On the issues which you also pulled on data centers as we all know are a hot topic right
now.
You looked at how people viewed the cost benefit analysis of them.
Your results show respondents from all parties think the costs outweigh the benefits.
But who is the day here public opinion or moneyed interest?
Well moneyed interests are certainly important and the development of these centers is an
economic priority for a whole industry.
But the public has not been convinced I think the proponents of data centers have failed
to convince the public that those benefits are real.
People recognize that technical jobs and tax revenue for communities are important
benefits.
But they look at water usage as a big prior concern of cost.
They also are concerned about electricity.
Maybe surprisingly the second biggest cost people point to is developing AI and saying
we shouldn't develop artificial intelligence.
So there's a real need to communicate with voters about what those benefits are or the
critics end up with the upper hand on this.
And we've seen a big movement away from data centers since October when we first asked.
An immigration the way its enforcement has rolled out is not favored with 44% just 44%
and approving and 56% disapproving.
Do you think but for the Minneapolis surge and the shooting deaths by the border patrol
of two people these numbers would look different?
I think that the events that have been going on in Minneapolis have certainly tilted independence
away from the way they view ICE.
An approval of ICE is still quite high in the 70 plus percent range, 80% actually on
ICE.
But Democrats are deeply negative more importantly as independents now three quarters are negative
about ICE.
Then there's the issue everyone is talking about that is property taxes versus school
funding.
Your poll results show 60% of registered voters prefer reducing property tax while 40% would
rather spend more on public schools.
Now you have been pulling on this for four years.
Is this newly resonant now?
It is and it but it's been building for a long time.
We've seen this trend move we've done I think it's 26 polls on this since 2012.
This is the biggest ever that say property taxes are more important 60 to 40.
We saw a big majority saying schools were more important than 2015 to 2019.
But those trends have moved in opposite directions property taxes are really a sentence right
now.
Interesting Charles Franklin.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
We'll see if they come to some kind of a deal.
I wish they do it soon.
We'll be out on Tuesday March 24th with our next poll.
That's the day before the Supreme Court debate.
I didn't want to release it on the day of the debate so we're moving it up a day.
I wish the governor and the legislature would tell me what they're going to do about a special
session.
They don't give you a call.