by Tony Petrangelo

May 24, 2012, 7:00 AM

Wisconsin Recall Polling Roundup

Election day is on June 5th in the race to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and in the past week or so there have been a slew of polls released and they all show pretty much the same thing, Walker leading with around 50% and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett trailing at around 45%.

Most recently was the St. Norbert College – Wisconsin Public Radio poll:

St. Norbert College (5/23, no trend lines):

Scott Walker (R-inc) 50%
Tom Barrett (D) 45%
Undecided 5%
(MoE: ±5%)

The day before that was an internal poll for We Are Wisconsin:

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (5/22, no trend lines):

Scott Walker (R-inc) 50
Tom Barrett (D) 47
Undecided 3
(MoE: ±4%)

At the end of last week was the Marquette Law School poll:

Marquette Law School (5/16, 5/2 in parenthesis):

Scott Walker (R-inc) 50 (48)
Tom Barrett (D) 44 (47)
Undecided 3 (3)
(MoE: ±4.1%)

And the day before that was a DailyKos/PPP poll:

PPP (5/15, 4/16 in parenthesis):

Scott Walker (R-inc) 50 (50)
Tom Barrett (D) 45 (45)
Hari Trivedi (I) 2 (2)
Undecided 3 (3)
(MoE: ±3.4%)

And the day before came a poll from Republican affiliated pollster We Ask America:

We Ask America (5/14, no trend lines):

Scott Walker (R-inc) 52
Tom Barrett (D) 43
Undecided 5
(MoE: ±2.8%)

Scott Walker has been in a 52-50 range while Tom Barrett has been in a 43-47 range and when you average the top lines of the five polls you get Walker 50, Barrett 45. Five points is not an insignificant lead.

What appears to be driving this is our old friend the enthusiasm gap.

From the Marquette Law School polling memo:

Republicans are more likely to say they are “absolutely certain” to vote on June 5, at 91 percent, than are Democrats and independents, both at 83 percent. In other areas of participation, Republicans also have an advantage. Sixty-two percent of Republicans say that they have tried to persuade someone to vote for or against a candidate, compared to 54 percent among Democrats and 48 percent among independents.

And from David Nir’s write up of the PPP poll on the Kos:

There does appear to be an enthusiasm gap that’s favoring the GOP right now. Among registered voters (as opposed to likely voters), the race was a point tighter, with Walker up 49-45.

All you need to look at for confirmation is the fact that in the PPP poll Tom Barrett is winning independents 49-42, and yet losing 45-50. The only way that happens is there are lot more Republicans in the sample and that usually happens because they’re more engaged.

None of which bodes well for hopes of defeating Scott Walker.

One has to wonder if the recently concluded Democratic primary may be part of the reason. Unions supported Tom Barrett’s challenger Kathleen Faulk in the primary and one has to wonder if Democrats still haven’t coalesced around Barrett yet.

If that is indeed the problem it’s not one that is insurmountable. And there may be some evidence that this is the case.

Looking at the Real Clear Politics polling data of the race, you can see that Tom Barrett is polling a couple of points worse, post-primary.

This doesn’t mean that his slight down tick is Kathleen Faulk supporters slow to come around, but it could be.

That said, Scott Walker is still at 50% in every one of these polls. That is a good spot to be in with two weeks to go.

If you want to help out you can stop by Drinking Liberally to tonight, when we will be passing the proverbial cheese hat in support of the recall effort.

Of course you can contribute to Tom Barrett directly as well.