Russ Feingold (left) and GOP foe Ron Johnson
Democrats have been feeling good about Russ Feingold's rematch campaign against Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, and a new Marquette Law poll provides Team Blue more reasons for optimism. Marquette gives Feingold a massive 50-36 lead: While this is larger than what any other public pollster has found, no survey to date has found Johnson in front.
What's odd here is that just a month ago, Marquette found Feingold with a much more modest 47-42 edge. That, however, followed an April poll putting Feingold ahead 54-38. Nothing's happened in the intervening months that should have caused Feingold's lead to collapse like this only to suddenly rebound, so it's likely that the middle poll was an outlier.
Still, it's very possible that this survey overstates Feingold's advantage somewhat. In the presidential race, Hillary Clinton leads Jeb Bush 50-38 in the Badger State, while she only beats him 48-44 in HuffPost Pollster's national average. This divergent result is by no means impossible—Barack Obama carried Wisconsin by 14 points in 2008 while winning nationwide by 7—but that would mean Democrats are on track to a dominant White House win next year. That could certainly happen, but in general, the signs have not yet pointed in such a direction.
But even if this survey leans a bit too Democratic, it's almost certainly not 14 points too Democratic. There's no question that Johnson is in a bad position and that this is one of Team Blue's best pickup opportunities next year.
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