Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Is Scott Walker's Support among Republicans Declining?

This poll has to be an outlier:
The Wisconsin Public Radio/St. Norbert College Survey was released the same day that Democrats, labor unions and others, angry over his moves to curb union rights, began circulating petitions to get the 540,000 signatures needed to force a recall election next year.

The poll showed that 58 percent of respondents believe Walker should be recalled from office. That compares with 47 percent who said in April that he should be recalled.

The growth in support for a recall came, surprisingly, from Republicans. In the spring, only 7 percent of Republicans supported recalling Walker but that grew to 24 percent in the fall. Support among Democrats held mainly steady at 88 percent in the spring and 92 percent in the fall.

Pollster Wendy Scattergood said Republicans who support recalling Walker are younger, have a lower income and are less educated than the rest of the sample in the poll. They also describe themselves as less conservative than other Republicans, she said.
But if it's not, if it is instead a harbinger of things to come, this recall just got a whole lot more interesting. 24% of Republicans seems awfully high to me, but maybe we've been looking at the Wisconsin electorate all wrong over the last year. Maybe, instead of there being a highly polarized environment exasperated by a razor-thin bloc of independents the center-right has had enough. They've reached their breaking point and now want out. If that's the case then it likely has little to do with opinions on collective bargaining, but rather with the disastrous tone that's dominated discussion in Wisconsin since January.

Those are some big ifs and I'm going to reserve judgment until I see another poll with similar figures. These are the kind of numbers that get potential Dem candidates' attention.


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