Breaking down the final Marquette poll of Wisconsin for the 2024 campaign

Editor’s note: The Marquette University Law School Poll is the gold standard of measuring public opinion in Wisconsin, so here at The Recombobulation Area, we take a closer look at each new poll. See all of our previous breakdowns here.

Well, we’ve arrived at the end of the Marquette University Law School Poll journey for the 2024 campaign. 

And at the top of the ticket, at least, it seems as if we’ve arrived at what’s long seemed inevitable: Wisconsin is a toss-up. 

The dramatic change in this race came this summer, of course, when President Joe Biden departed the race and Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee. That move turned the tide on submarining enthusiasm among Democrats in Wisconsin, the Harris campaign propelled that trend upward, and the 100-day sprint from the day Biden dropped out to, well, yesterday has been an unprecedented whirlwind, vaulting the vice president into the spotlight and into a fighting chance to keep the incumbent party in the White House. The pace of campaign events and rallies and visits from Harris, running mate Tim Walz, and a host of surrogates has been relentless, and even more are planned in the days to come — both Harris and Trump will be in Milwaukee on Friday — with less than a week to go until Election Day. 

The move from Biden to Harris will be perhaps the defining element of the 2024 campaign. With Biden at the top of the ticket for Democrats, the trends were heading toward a Trump victory in Wisconsin and for the presidency. At the RNC in Milwaukee, it felt like a coronation for the former president. Until the Sunday that followed, and I’ll bet you know exactly where you were when that news of Biden dropping out of the race broke. 

Going from Biden to Harris, then, put the race back in play for Democrats both in Wisconsin and nationally, returning Wisconsin to its place at the center of the political universe, once again the potential tipping point state in the Electoral College, as it was in 2016 and 2020. 

And now, here we are, in the final days of October, with another poll showing Wisconsin on the razor’s edge — Harris 50% to Trump 49%. Maybe it was always going to be this way. 

So for one final time for the 2024 election cycle, let’s dig into the crosstabs and take a closer look at what’s happening in this poll.

Let’s recombobulate.

If Harris wins Wisconsin, women will power her victory

As has been well-established at this point, it’s a neck-and-neck race between Harris and Trump.

In this particular sample, some of the same trends we’ve been seeing throughout the race have remained. Trump leads with men (57%-42%); Harris leads with women (59%-41%). Younger voters in both the 18-29 Gen Z age group and 30-44 Millennial age group favor Harris, the 45-59 Gen X range backs Trump, and the 60+ voters are a more even split. Moderates — which, in this era in Wisconsin, often means Democratic voters — favor Harris (65%-35%).  Independents continue to lean toward Harris (55% to Trump’s 44%), an area where Democrats have the edge in both top-of-the-ticket races. 

Regionally, Harris does well in Milwaukee and Madison, Trump does well in the Milwaukee suburbs and exurbs, the northern and western part of the state leans Republican, and the Green Bay media market is all over the place. 

(That last part is no exaggeration. The race in the Green Bay market went from 60% Trump – 40% Harris in the September poll to 49% Trump – 51% Harris in the early October poll to 58% Trump – 40% Harris in the new poll. There’s some across-the-board weirdness that shows up in this regional metric for the Green Bay area in the Hovde-Baldwin race, too. Northeastern Wisconsin is as swingy as ever, and difficult to pin down.)

On personality and character, Harris continues to poll better than Trump. In the questions of how certain phrases describe each candidate, few say she has “behaved corruptly,” and a majority of voters say she “is intelligent,” “is honest,” and “has the right temperament,” where she’s ahead of Trump on each mark. Trump polls ahead of Harris on having a “strong record of accomplishments” and slightly ahead on “is a strong leader,” but overall, doesn’t poll as well on these questions. 

On the issues, Harris polls better on Medicare and Social Security, health care, ensuring fair elections, and abortion policy; Trump polls better on the economy, immigration and border security, and on the Israel-Hamas war. This has reflected the larger partisan split on issues in this year’s campaign. 

Much of these results, on personality and character and on the issues, have been fairly consistent from poll to poll. The big change came when Harris entered the race. Since then, the gap between the Republican candidate and Democratic candidate on the top issue – the economy – closed considerably, but has remained steady in the four polls since. You could look at any of the four Marquette polls since Harris entered the race and see largely similar results throughout. 

What’s especially interesting about this latest poll release, however, is that it groups together those four polls that have included Kamala Harris as the nominee into one larger sample. Given that many of the results within this race have not changed significantly in that time from poll to poll, this is more revelatory about where voters from different demographics, religious affiliations, age groups, etc., are positioned in Wisconsin in this race. Take a look at this chart from the Marquette poll presentation. 

There’s a lot going on here, but in this chart, we can see a more comprehensive view of the presidential race by these groups identified in the cross-tabs, visualized in a different way. You can see stark differences in religious affiliation, differences by gender, and the urban-rural divide that’s been central to shifting political dynamics in Wisconsin for the last 15 or so years. 

Drilling down further, the poll results and presentation also shows just how the gender gap plays out in critical ways. 

There are a few especially interesting takeaways here. 

For one, let’s look at the “suburban core” of voters. The suburbs have been shifting significantly in recent years, where the former GOP stronghold of the WOW counties (Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington) have been hemorrhaging Republican voters for several election cycles, helping tip the scales for many of the statewide Democratic victories in the state. Here it becomes abundantly clear who is powering that shift — women. Women in the suburbs favor Harris by an 18-point margin, while men in the suburbs back Trump by a 21-point margin. 

And as poll director Charles Franklin noted during the presentation, the breakdown by level of education also has a significant gender gap. Women, by and large, lean toward Harris, but that number is +2 with women without college degrees, and +36 for women with college degrees. For men, those non-college voters go for Trump by a 20-point margin, and is an even split among those with college degrees. 

Another huge chasm appears among Gen X voters, where women back Harris by a 14-point margin, and men back Trump by a gargantuan 36-point margin. Gen X was identified as the most pro-Trump generation in this poll, but Gen X women lean slightly more toward Harris than even Millennial women here. And Gen Z women also lean toward Harris by a 36-point margin.

So, what does this ultimately tell us about how this election is going to play out?

If there’s a polling miss here, the way there was in previous elections with Trump on the ballot, then it’s likely the former president will win. But trends with women, particularly college-educated women living in the suburbs, are impossible to ignore. There is a rather profound dislike of Trump among women in Wisconsin. His favorability with women in the newest poll is a net minus-27 (36% favorable to 63% unfavorable), and has been about that poor for several polls in a row. These trends have accelerated throughout the Trump era, and have been among the primary reasons that Democrats have won 14 of the last 17 statewide elections in Wisconsin. With this being the first presidential election following the unpopular decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, and with more than 60% of Wisconsinites saying abortion should be legal in most or all cases, that cannot be overlooked as a central motivator in this election, particularly among women. 

The presidential election could truly go either way. Anyone who tells you otherwise is flat wrong. Wisconsin is a toss-up, and like Franklin said, “It should not surprise anyone if Donald Trump wins. It should not surprise anyone if Kamala Harris wins.” 

But if it comes to pass that Donald Trump loses again and Kamala Harris emerges victorious in Wisconsin, it will be because of the women of the state. 

It’s possible we’re underestimating the third-party factor in Wisconsin

Despite his many appeals to try to remove himself from the Wisconsin ballot, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., will indeed appear on Wisconsin’s ballot. And in the multi-candidate polling, even though he ended his campaign months ago to back Trump, he’s still at about 5%.

Altogether, the candidates from outside the two major parties combine to make up 9% of the Wisconsin electorate in this poll.

Franklin addressed this during the poll results presentation. 

“One of the serious uncertainties is how much of these 9% stick with one of these third parties, how many decide not to vote, and how many will vote for Harris or Trump once it comes to the end,” he said.

I have tended to think the third party factor in Wisconsin is almost always overstated, and this year has been no different. With Kennedy not actively running, and with his poll numbers dropping significantly even when he was in the race, I had not been paying much mind to any potential Kennedy vote, or other third-party votes, significantly factoring into the end results.

But, 9% for all of these third party candidates combined is hard to ignore. There are a lot of third-party candidates on the ballot. Even if the final number is a fraction of that, that could still be enough to be a significant factor in the end result, when the polling between Harris and Trump being this tight. And it’s hard to ascertain where exactly RFK would be pulling votes from at this stage, since he’s endorsed Trump. And even with those leaning toward the Libertarian or Green Party candidate, those voters can be unpredictable. 

I certainly don’t think the end results will show 9% of the Wisconsin electorate voting for a candidate other than Harris or Trump, but with these numbers being where they are right now, this could be a greater election night factor than we might be currently considering. 

The Senate race is tightening, but Baldwin maintains an edge with independent voters

With a tremendous amount of spending on this race in the campaign’s later stages, this race has tightened. It harkens back to two years ago, when an onslaught of negative ads — many from similar Uihlein-funded super PACs — proved too much for Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes to overcome, in what ended up being the closest race for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin in more than a century. 

But Baldwin is clearly a stronger candidate than Barnes, and has the advantage of incumbency on her side. And this is Wisconsin, after all, and a toss-up should always have been the type of race expected in a presidential election year when more people are voting.

It’s clear, however, that this race between Baldwin and Republican challenger Eric Hovde has tightened. The fundraising piece — Hovde’s tens of millions in self-funding, the raft of cash from super PACs run by the Uihleins and Mitch McConnell — will be the first reason listed if the race does go the Republican’s way. The negative ads directed at Baldwin are having an impact, with her favorability numbers dipping in the later stages of the campaign, now at a net minus-5, where she’d been a slight net positive in the two polls prior. And this is the first poll in a year that’s shown her at a net-negative on favorability, but that is also a dynamic we also saw with Tony Evers before his re-election in 2022. The immense volume of negative ads in late stages of these campaigns are hard to ignore.

While that favorability dip is worth noting, what’s still there for Baldwin, though — and should be a significant factor in this race — is that she continues to lead with independent voters. She has more than 60% of the support from independent voters and that’s been consistent for three consecutive polls. Her favorability is still a net-positive with independent voters, too — 52% to 40%. 

And while Hovde has consolidated support among Republicans, he’s still at a huge disadvantage with independent voters and he’s showing little to no crossover appeal with Democrats. For two consecutive polls now, Hovde’s favorability with independent voters is hovering around just 20%, close to a net minus-40. 

Two years ago, some in the Barnes camp wondered if they’d have been able to overcome the gap given just a bit more time in the campaign, as he too saw a polling uptick in the final pre-election poll that showed Ron Johnson with just a two percentage point lead. It’s possible the Hovde camp could be wondering the same come Nov. 6. 

Baldwin leading by just 2% in the topline result suggests that either candidate could win, as that mark is within the margin of error. The race has clearly tightened. But even though he’s shown a slight lead in other polls, Hovde has still not led in a single Marquette poll, and the long-term trend in this race continues to favor the Democratic incumbent. 

Stray observations…

A few shorter takeaways here:

• A key point on the fundamentals of the race is always going to involve the approval rating of the incumbent leader, and Joe Biden’s approval rating continues to be quite bad, with just 42% approving to 56% disapproving of the job he’s done as president. It’s another metric showing that Biden would absolutely be getting walloped in this race, and one that’s still probably dragging down Harris to a substantial degree. 
• JD Vance’s numbers are way up from where they’d been previously. His favorability was a net minus-13 in the early October poll, which did not include the vice presidential debate, and now he’s at just a net minus-3. The poll also shows a big gain in net favorability for Ron Johnson, at just net minus-3, which might be the best net favorability rating he’s ever posted in the Marquette poll. These numbers both seem like too much of outliers to be entirely accurate, but we won’t get another poll before election day to find out.
• Conversely, Tim Walz’s numbers got a bit worse in this poll. He was one of the only politicians with a net positive rating in the poll — along with Gov. Tony Evers — and now he’s dipped to essentially even, dropping significantly with independent voters. Again, it’s hard to tell from a one-poll sample if this is fully reflecting the reality on the ground, given that his numbers have been quite strong up to this point — and he still has a better favorability rating than any other presidential, vice presidential or Senate candidate polled — but the slip here is notable.   
• There’s no poll on Robin Vos or the Wisconsin State Legislature, which, with the first election happening under new maps just days away, is rather unfortunate. The last pre-election poll on approval of the state legislature then will be the one from early October, showing the incredibly important governing body with 33% approval to 55% disapproval. But with the far greater level of campaign activity in this race, could that have changed in the final stretch? We won’t know from polling now, that’s for sure. Bummer. 
• There’s one question on undocumented immigrants that does not seem to reflect the larger tone of the conversation on immigration in this election cycle. In a question on views on undocumented immigrants, 50% say they should stay and apply for citizenship, 15% say they should stay as temporary guest workers, and just 33% say they should be required to leave their jobs and the country. The “Mass Deportation NOW!” signs at the RNC in Milwaukee does not reflect a broadly popular policy position. But Democrats have done an abysmal job countering Republican messaging on immigration, and have suffered in the polls because of it. 
• Enthusiasm continues to be a bit higher for Democrats than it does for Republicans, though both parties are now both especially enthusiastic about this election now, nearly mirroring the sky high enthusiasm from 2020 that led to record turnout in Wisconsin. Enthusiasm among independent voters, though, has slipped back down below 40%, and my guess here is that people are really sick and tired of all the negative advertising in this campaign. 

Charles Franklin always ends his final Marquette poll presentation with the same message, and it’s one we’ll echo here at The Recombobulation Area. 

“Polls don’t vote. People vote. The election is in your hands.”

Go vote, Wisconsin.

Editor’s Note: The Recombobulation Area is a thirteen-time Milwaukee Press Club award–winning weekly opinion column and online publication founded by longtime Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer. The Recombobulation Area is now part of Civic Media.