Poll: Walker Approval Rating Remains At 38 Percent While Ryan’s Stays High

A recent Marquette University Law School Poll shows high approval ratings for one prominent Republican and lower approval ratings for another.

House Speaker Paul Ryan has an 80 percent approval among Republicans statewide. And even when Democrats are included, Ryan’s approval statewide sits at 54 percent.

The Marquette University Law School released the poll Wednesday, the day after Ryan won his Republican primary with 84 percent of the vote. That far outpaces Republican Gov. Scott Walker whose approval rating is at just 38 percent, unchanged from July.

Walker’s approval rating was at 43 percent in March just before Wisconsin’s presidential primary. It first fell below 40 percent nearly a year ago, just before he dropped out of the Republican race for president.

Walker has largely focused on state politics since dropping out of the race, but he returned to the national spotlight in July with a prime-time speech at the Republican National Convention endorsing Donald Trump.

Clinton Leads Trump

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has expanded her lead over Trump among Wisconsin voters but both candidates remain unpopular in the state.

The new survey shows Clinton now ahead of Trump by 15 percentage points among likely voters and 10 points up among registered voters. Last month she was ahead by 6 points among registered voters and 4 points with likely voters.

But Marquette pollster Charles Franklin cautioned that the race isn’t over in Wisconsin. He said presidential contests going back 16 years have seen plenty of change in the final three months: “The 2000, the 2004 , the 2008 all had pretty substantial movements, and so I think it’s a bit of hubris to believe that whatever we think today is unchangeable, that no events can matter.”

Neither major party candidate is being perceived very favorable, according to the poll. It shows 65 percent of registered voters have an unfavorable view of Trump, while Clinton’s unfavorable rating is at 53 percent.

When asked to consider a four-way race that includes Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Green party contender Jill Stein, Clinton’s lead over Trump dropped to 13 percent among likely voters.

Feingold Widens Lead Over Johnson

Meanwhile, Democrat Russ Feingold has increased his lead over Republican incumbent Ron Johnson in the U.S. Senate race.

The Marquette survey puts Feingold ahead of Johnson by 11 percentage points among likely voters, and 6 points ahead among registered voters.

Pollster Franklin said Johnson remains hampered by results showing many voters still don’t know much about the first-term incumbent. Thirty-one percent of registered voters don’t have an opinion of Johnson, compared with 18 percent for Feingold.

Franklin predicted Johnson will try to reach out to more of the roughly 14 percent of people who report being undecided independents.

“That’s a pretty substantial percentage of the vote. That could still change considerably at the presidential level and to the benefit or the damage to the Senate candidates,” Franklin said.

The poll shows Libertarian Senate contender Phil Anderson at 7 percent, among both likely and registered voters. But Franklin said Anderson appears to be drawing nearly evenly from Republicans and Democrats.

In July, Feingold was up 5 points among likely voters and 7 points among registered voters.

No Popular Options On Road Funding

The poll also shows some of the challenges for politicians hoping to fix Wisconsin roads in the face of a projected $900 million shortfall in next year’s state transportation budget.

The survey shows 43 percent of people would increase gas taxes or registration fees, while 33 percent would cut most or all road projects, and 12 percent favor borrowing the $900 million

Marquette’s Franklin said borrowing may not stay in third place.

“Borrowing is never very popular. But as each of the last two budgets have reached the point of where it was borrow or nothing, support for borrowing goes up to nearly 50 percent,” he said.

But the Marquette poll also breaks down the numbers by political party….and shows 55 percent of Republican voters would cut road projects, while only 25 percent would raise taxes and fees and just 8 percent would borrow. GOP Gov. Scott Walker has asked the state DOT to deliver its budget request to him in about a month.

The Marquette Law School Poll was conducted Aug. 4 through Sunday, sampling 805 registered Wisconsin voters. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.6 points. The error margin is 5 points among likely voters.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with original reporting from Wisconsin Public Radio.