State Rep. Francesca Hong appears to be maintaining an overwhelming lead in Wisconsin’s upcoming Democratic gubernatorial primary, even after a reallocation of Mandela Barnes’ supporters following his exit from the race, according to a poll released Friday.
The poll of 1,473 likely Democratic primary voters by State Navigate gives Hong 44% support versus 24% for Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley. Sen. Kelda Roys saw her support grow to 11% and former Administration Secretary Joel Brennan garnered 5%.
These figures are what respondents said after they were told that former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, and Missy Hughes had dropped out of the race and they were asked to indicate who they were leaning toward, even if they were not fully certain.
Even after learning about withdrawals, 3% still said they would vote for Barnes, another 3% would support Rodriguez, and 10% said they were still undecided.
These are the same respondents who participated in a poll sponsored by UpNorthNews and Main Street Action and conducted by State Navigate prior to Barnes’ withdrawal. In that survey, Hong also had 44%, while the rest of the field had Crowley at 15%, Barnes with 14%, Roys and Brennan at 4%.
State Navigate reports a margin of error of 2.3% for this updated survey taken Aug. 3-6.
Barnes did not endorse Hong or any other candidate for the Aug. 11 primary and that is reflected in how his supporters scattered across the field of remaining contenders. While 39% said they now support Crowley, another 28% went for Hong, 20% gravitated to Roys, and 2% to Brennan. Another 12% of Barnes supporters said they remain undecided.
Asked about their current second choice, both Crowley and Roys were chosen by 17% of respondents, followed by 12% for Hong and 10% for Brennan.
When asked how they would vote if the choices were limited to Hong and Crowley, Hong maintained a big margin, 49% to 28%, with the rest choosing other candidates or undecided.
Because the survey was limited to likely Democratic primary voters, a general election match-up with Republican US Rep. Tom Tiffany is obviously skewed, but 9% of those voters indicated they might vote for Tiffany and 8% said they would not vote or are undecided, while the remaining 83% expressed some measure of November support for Hong.
State Navigate co-founder Chaz Nuttycombe’s polling notes led off by addressing what he called “the elephant in the room, the Michigan primary for US Senate, where polls overestimated arch-progressive Abdul El-Sayed by a 12-point margin,” only to see an actual winning margin of 1%.
“Political observers have started to wonder in the days since the contest whether or not a similar polling error could occur in Wisconsin, to which we reply: maybe,” Nuttycombe said, pointing out issues like El-Sayed and Hong voters potentially being more eager to answer polls and a Wisconsin voter file that does not require declaring party registration — which allows voters the freedom to choose either party’s primary while giving pollsters an extra obstacle when identifying primary election participants.
