Rising prices and falling savings may finally be changing how voters in Wisconsin see Gov. Tony Evers.
The latest Marquette Law School Poll shows more Wisconsinites say the state is on the wrong track, and more Wisconsin voters don’t like the governor.
“Wrong track has been the champion in this contest for four or five years, at least since COVID hit,” MU chief pollster Charles Franklin said Wednesday. “It's still underwater, and [there’s] still substantial pessimism about how the state is headed.”
Just 44% of voters who were asked said Wisconsin is headed in the right direction, while 56% of voters said Wisconsin is on the wrong track.
Franklin said some of that change is likely because more Wisconsin voters say they are struggling financially.
The new poll says 48% of voters in the state say they are living conformably, while 37% say they are just getting by, and another 16% say they are struggling.
“[The comfortable number] is still hovering in the high 40s, 48% this time. But in 2019, that was up in the 60% range,” Franklin explained. “And so this is the other side of the burden of Biden's economic outcomes, or at least as people perceive them. There's a dramatic difference between how people felt about their personal finances in 2019 pre-COVID and where they feel themselves now.”
The newest poll says just 5% of voters say the national economy is excellent, and 32% say it’s good. Another 30% say the national economy is not so good, and 33% of voters say it’s poor.
That pessimism may be starting to show in how Wisconsin voters see Gov. Evers.
“Evers’ job approval has been over 50% all year, but he dipped under this time,” Franklin explained. “This is the first time in a year that he's been below 50%, Though still more approve than disapprove, by a point or two, but there's been just this little bit of movement in this last month. Notice that it also parallels the change in the state is headed in the wrong direction, or on the wrong track [number].”
Evers’ approval rating is at 48% in the latest Marquette poll. His disapproval rating is 46%.
Evers had a 51% approval rating in Marquette’s polls in June, July, and August. And had an even higher approval rating before that.
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