Crowley Leads Tiffany in First Marquette Poll of General Election for Governor

David Crowley and Tom Tiffany.

A new poll matching up the two candidates for Wisconsin governor shows Democrat David Crowley leading Republican Tom Tiffany by five points among likely voters.

But the Crowley advantage shrinks when polling all registered voters, according to the first Marquette Law School poll since Crowley and Tiffany emerged from the Aug. 11 primary.

“You could either come away with a modest Crowley advantage … or a dead tie,” said pollster Charles Franklin at an event sharing the poll results on Wednesday.

The poll interviewed 891 registered voters from Aug. 12 through Aug. 20, and had a 4 percent margin of error. Among likely voters, Crowley was ahead of Tiffany 49-44.

It’s the first head-to-head comparison of Crowley and Tiffany by Marquette, because Crowley was excluded from polling for the 10 days that he was out of the race — before he reentered and clinched the nomination.

And Crowley has an advantage among likely independent voters, with 55 percent choosing Crowley and 16 percent choosing Tiffany. But about a third of those coveted general election voters remain undecided.

The results are murkier among all registered voters, which finds a tie of 44-44 for both candidates. Almost half of all registered independent voters, 47 percent, were undecided.

Democratic Party challenges after long primary battle

Other polling in these early days of the general election has indicated a slight lead for Crowley, in a year when Democrats nationally have an overall advantage. That’s because midterm elections tend to favor the party that’s not in power in Washington, and because President Donald Trump — with whom Tiffany is closely allied — has historically low approval ratings.

But that doesn’t indicate a slam dunk for Democratic candidates, because the Democratic party as a whole is unpopular — including among Democrats. Whereas Wisconsin Republicans have a net positive feeling about their party of 85 percent, Democrats have a 74 percent favorability rating of their own party.

“This is where most of the difference comes between why Democrats are viewed more unfavorably than Republicans. It’s coming from inside the house,” said Franklin.

National and state polling has consistently shown that the GOP is more popular than the Democratic party, he said, but “this pattern has shown up all year, that it’s (because of) Democrats frustrated with their own party.”

Democratic voters also have a bit less enthusiasm going into November than Republican voters, at 49 percent of Democrats compared to 55 percent of Republicans identifying as “very enthusiastic.”

Franklin attributes that enthusiasm gap to the heated Democratic primary, whereas Tiffany more or less had the field to himself from January onwards. Supporters of U.S. Rep. Francesca Hong, who narrowly lost to Crowley, are less enthusiastic about their nominee than supporters of other candidates.

“I think it’s pretty obvious that it’s within the stronger supporters of Francesca Hong that you’re seeing a little bit lower enthusiasm among Democrats,” Franklin said. “While Democrats are pretty united behind their candidate, you do see this difference coming from enthusiasm, depending on how you felt about the candidates.”

But the poll also indicates that disaffected Democrats and disappointed Hong supporters still intend to vote for Crowley.

Those feelings are “not translating into voting across the aisle,” said Franklin.

Both sides need to build name recognition to appeal to independents

Still, both camps have their work cut out for them. Neither Tiffany, a U.S. Congressman, or Crowley, the Milwaukee County executive, have enormous statewide name recognition.

In a measure of the candidates’ favorability, Crowley came out at 33 percent favorable and 29 percent unfavorable, with 38 percent of voters saying they didn’t know enough to have an opinion.

“This is going to be important over the next 70 some-odd days till Election Day, because it means that, despite the primary, there’s still an awful lot of people that don’t have a clear impression of Crowley,” said Franklin. “And his side will be trying to convince people of one image from that, and Tom Tiffany’s side will be trying to convince voters of a different image from that, but they’re working with a pretty sizable group of people here available for being convinced.”

By contrast, Tiffany had a higher favorability rating – 39 percent – and a much higher unfavorability rating, at 42 percent. A much smaller share of voters at 18 percent, said they didn’t know enough to have an opinion.

The study finds that Democrats’ partisan support for Crowley, at 98 percent, is stronger than Republicans’ partisan support for Tiffany, at 91 percent.

“So after an exciting primary, shall we call it? It’s interesting that Democrats do appear to be completely unified behind their candidate, and Republicans quite unified but not quite as much as Democrats are,” Franklin said.

Crowley leading Tiffany in first Marquette head-to-head poll of governor’s race was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.