The most buzzed-about results of each poll, of course, are those relating to Gov. Scott Walker and his Democratic challenger Mary Burke. Beginning in late October, 2013, just after Burke announced her candidacy, the pollsters’ questions included a potential match-up between the two. And since August, the poll has broken down results into likely voters and registered voters.
Below we compare voters’ responses to the question, “If the 2014 election for Governor were held today, would you vote for Mary Burke, the Democrat or for Scott Walker, the Republican?”
In the first graph, all respondents are lumped together. It’s clear that in the fall of 2013, Burke had little name recognition. And while Walker’s popularity stayed relatively level throughout those early months, their popularity eventually edged closer together as the campaigns unfolded.
In August of this year, when pollsters began to categorize likely and registered voters, response trends became a bit clearer. The next four graphs include the results from the four polls conducted from late August through mid-October, with August’s results starting on the left.
“Likely voters are the focus of virtually every campaign,” says Charles Franklin, a law professor at Marquette and the director of the MU Law poll. “The complication is that people can change in their likelihood
of voting,” he says, which incentivizes campaigns to motivate voters to show up at the polls, rather than focus solely on persuading them to choose a candidate.
“That’s the strength of ‘likely voter’ model,” says Franklin. “It shifts
from month to month because it combines preference of candidates with
motivation to vote.”
So why does Marquette’s poll bother with registered voters?
At 3.3 million registered voters in the state, they “represent much more totality of Wisconsin’s population.”
Comparing this election to the 2010 gubernatorial race and the 2012 recall elections, he adds, Walker had clearer advantage that wavered little. According to his polling, the winner of this election is still very much “unclear.”
