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The first Marquette Law School poll of 2014 has Gov. Scott Walker in the lead over Democratic challenger Mary Burke.
After surveying 802 registered voters, the new poll revealed Walker leads Burke by six points; 47 to 41 percent. This is a larger gap than was reported in the October poll, according to a story in the Wisconsin State Journal.
Charles Franklin, an MU professor and poll director, noted that most of the poll was conducted prior to Walker giving his State of the State address Tuesday.
Additional results found:
- 54 percent feel the state is headed in the right direction
- 49 percent say the state budget is in better shape now than a couple of years ago
- 51 percent approve overall of Walker’s job performance
- 40 percent think Wisconsin lags behind other states for job creation
- 14 percent think Walker can reach his goal of 250,000 jobs by the end of the year –
- 63Â percent of Republicans, 81 percent of independents and 91 percent of Democrats don’t believe the state will add enough jobs for Walker to reach his 250,000 goal
Voters are split almost evenly on whether or not Walker should approve the Kenosha casino; 42 to 41 for approval.
As for the minimum wage, Franklin said voters strongly support raising the minimum wage. 62 percent said “yes” even though they were reminded that some people say doing so could cause some businesses to eliminate jobs.
Of those who support the increase and were reminded the current rate is $7.25 per hour, 25 percent say it that’s good enough; 33 percent believe it should go up to $9 per hour; 25 percent say $10 per hour is a good threshold; 5 percent say $11 per hour is fair; and 10 percent say the minimum wage should be $12 or more per hour.
From the poll:
This poll interviewed 802 registered Wisconsin voters by both landline and cell phone Jan. 20-23, 2014. The margin of error is +/- 3.5 percentage points for the full sample. The entire questionnaire, full results and breakdowns by demographic groups are available at http://law.marquette.edu/poll.