Here and Now
Charles Franklin on Polling Voters About Crowley and Tiffany
Clip: Season 2500 Episode 2509 | 5m 2sVideo has Closed Captions
Charles Franklin on what voters say about 2026 governor candidates and the Legislature.
Marquette Law School Poll Director Charles Franklin details what Wisconsin voters say about 2026 governor candidates David Crowley and Tom Tiffany along with who should control the state Legislature.
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Here and Now is a local public television program presented by PBS Wisconsin
Here and Now
Charles Franklin on Polling Voters About Crowley and Tiffany
Clip: Season 2500 Episode 2509 | 5m 2sVideo has Closed Captions
Marquette Law School Poll Director Charles Franklin details what Wisconsin voters say about 2026 governor candidates David Crowley and Tom Tiffany along with who should control the state Legislature.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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>> Drum roll please.
The first statewide poll conducted after the Wisconsin primary election finds a dead heat among registered voters in the race for governor.
Same holds true for the partizan balance of the legislature.
Marquette Law School poll Director Charles Franklin is here with details and insights.
And thanks for being here, Charles.
>> Good to be here.
>> So let's get right to it.
Democratic candidate David Crowley ties Republican Tom Tiffany among registered voters at 44%, each with 12% undecided.
But among likely voters, Crowley comes in at 49% to Tiffany's 44%, with 7% undecided.
What is this gap between the registered and the likely voters?
>> It comes down to two things.
One is Democrats are a little bit more likely to say they're sure they're going to vote in November, so they get a little bump there.
But Democrats are also more loyal to their party's candidate among likely voters than they are among registered voters.
So you put those two things together, and that accounts for why it's five point Steil a close race, but a five point lead with likely while it's tied with registered.
>> Where do independent voters fall in their choice?
>> First of all, pretty undecided.
So there's quite a bit of undecided undecided independence.
They lean towards Crowley more than to Tiffany, but with a between a 30 and a 55% undecided rate.
There are a lot of undecided independents out there.
>> Why do you suppose there are a lot of undecided independents?
>> Familiarity with the candidates is the number one answer.
A little over a third of all registered voters say they don't know enough about David Crowley to say whether they have a favorable or unfavorable view.
Those with an opinion are slightly more favorable than unfavorable, but less than half, as many say.
They don't know enough about Tiffany to have a view, though they're they're slightly more unfavorable than favorable.
So just as with the likely voters, you see a slight edge towards Crowley among on favorability, but a lot of room for voters to learn more about Crowley and the campaigns to compete for, whether they learn good things or bad things.
>> Now, you also found the Democrats hold an advantage in the number, saying, as you said, they are likely to vote.
But more Republicans say they're very enthusiastic to vote.
Is that a hangover from the primary race?
>> It looks like it is.
If you look at Hang Franco Francesca Hong supporters, they are several points less enthusiastic than are either Crowley supporters or Mandela Barnes supporters.
So we were in the field starting the day after the primary.
I think it's kind of natural that if you supported Francesca Hong, you might be a little less enthusiastic.
After she so narrowly lost the primary.
But when we look at how are those people voting, 98% of the Hong voters are saying they're voting for Crowley.
99% of the Crowley voters are voting for Crowley.
So I think we're getting amazing levels of party unity within the Democrats, but a little bit of an enthusiasm gap, mostly coming from disappointed Hong supporters.
legislature, the partizan makeup, really Hughes to the same kinds of results that you found in the governor's race.
>> Very much so.
It's it's a tie with registered voters.
It's a slight Democratic edge, though, a smaller one with likely voters.
This is a statewide look at if the election were held today, would you vote for the Republican or Democrat for legislature?
You really need to dial down into the 4 or 5 competitive Senate seats, the six or 7 or 8 Assembly seats with a statewide sample.
We can't say anything about those individual races.
>> Except we could probably predict that it will all be close.
>> It sure looks like it's close.
Boy, that's a headline for Wisconsin politics, right?
>> So I also wanted to get your take on fake polling conducted by an outfit called Median Strategies.
Now, they released a poll in the Wisconsin primary in California and Nevada, as you know, what was your reaction when it was determined that poll was entirely fabricated, supposedly as a social experiment?
>> It's pure and simple fraud.
So this is a challenge to the polling profession, but it's a challenge to the news media and all of us that try to interpret what's going on in polling for the public.
I just don't think there's a magic wand to make that kind of fraud go away.
When anybody with a Twitter account can publish anything they want to claim they found in a poll.
>> All right, we leave it there.
Charles Franklin, thanks very much for your poll.
>> Thank you.
>> Franklin's Marquette survey also shows that 78% survey also shows that 78%
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