Looking at all Wisconsin recall polling that has been released to the public since late June, here is the overall picture:
These averages include Daily Kos/PPP polls (see
here and
here) of the six recalls on Aug. 9, two internal polls from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin released to the public (see
here and
here), and two polls from a new polling firm published in the diaries by
jmartin4s.
While I am aware that some other researchers disagree, I have never had any problem with including party or campaign funded polls in my averages. I am, however, a bit wary of the polls published in the diaries, given their extremely low-cost, non-standard methodology. Removing those polls, here is the picture:
Either way, Democrats lead in three of the six campaigns, and are close in the other three. Since they need three wins in order to take control of the Wisconsin state senate, this gives them a distinct advantage. Further,
as I explained two weeks ago:
Democrats are way ahead in one of the six campaigns. This means they only need to win two of the five campaigns that are actually competitive, while Republicans have to win four of those five. That is a significant Democratic edge.
So this is all very good news. Stuart Rothenberg favors Democrats in the recalls, too. Still, Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, who conducted the polls for the Wisconsin Democrats linked above, offers some well justified caution to Greg Sargent. This is an extremely unusual election, so pollsters might not be as accurate as normal:
And what’s got Dems particularly nervous is that in these races, there’s no precedent for predicting what turnout is going to look like — because we’ve never before seen anything like this set of recall elections.
“We don’t have a precedent for this,” Mark Mellman, the well respected Dem pollster who is conducting recall polling for the Wisconsin Democratic Party, acknowledged to me. “The nature of the turnout is so uncertain that it really will make a huge difference. We’re dealing with big uncertainties.”
Mellman said that three of the key races — though he wouldn’t specify which — are so close that if turnout doesn’t break the Dems’ way, it could throw them to Republicans. He described them as “all very close races that could go either way.”
We're polling four of the six recall elections this weekend, and we will post results as soon as we get them. In the meantime, sign up to make phone calls to help turn out the vote with the Wisconsin Democratic Party and DFA/PCCC.
