Walker, Barrett in a dead heat, according to poll

Governor Scott Walker has a slim lead over Tom Barrett in a poll released last week by Wisconsin Public Radio and St. Norbert College.

A poll of 406 likely voters in the last week shows 50 percent favor Republican Gov. Scott Walker and 45 percent support Democrat Tom Barrett. The margin of error is 5 percentage points; so the race could be considered a dead heat.

The WPR/St. Norbert College poll is conducted by Wendy Scattergood, an assistant professor at the college. She says half of those polled who planned to vote for Walker, cited economic reasons.

“What they thought his greatest success has been is controlling the budget and the deficit,” Scattergood said. “And then collective bargaining came in at No. 2. Over 50 percent told us controlling the deficit was the No. 1 issue.”

About 47 percent of poll respondents who said they would vote for Barrett indicated the governor’s character is why Walker should be removed from office. Likewise, character was listed by 72 percent of Barrett’s supporters as the reason the Milwaukee mayor should occupy the governor’s office.

“Really the big thing there is they think he’s a unifier that he can really bring people together,” she said. “A lot of people just said ‘bring peace to Wisconsin.’”

When poll respondents were asked to weigh in on the direction of the state, 49 percent indicated Wisconsin was headed in the right direction. That’s higher than the 43 percent who felt that way ... when the poll asked the same question last fall.

Tags: news, politics