President Trump’s approval rating is still underwater in Wisconsin, one of his unexpected conquests in the 2016 election. Among Badger State Republicans, however, the president’s popularity is overwhelming.
A new Marquette University poll, conducted among 800 registered voters between Feb. 25 and March 1, puts Trump’s overall approval rating at 43 percent, three points higher than Real Clear Politics’ current national average. Fifty percent of respondents said they disapproved of Trump, five points lower than RCP’s national average. The poll’s margin of error was 4.5 percentage points.
But among Republicans, Trump’s approval rating jumps all the way to 89 percent — notably high in a state that favored Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, by a 13-point margin in the presidential primary. Democratic disapproval of Trump also landed at 89 percent, setting up a polarizing midterm cycle.
Trump’s overwhelming favorability among Republicans is already heavily influencing the state’s Republican Senate primary, where businessman Kevin Nicholson and state Sen. Leah Vukmir have been competing to praise his leadership more vigorously. Whether that will cause the eventual nominee problems come November given the president’s 50 percent disapproval rating is hard to say with eight months left in the race. Incumbent Gov. Scott Walker is on the ballot in November as well.
The Marquette poll also found a stark enthusiasm gap favoring Democrats, 64 percent of whom said they were excited to vote in this year’s elections. That’s compared with 54 percent of Republicans, and amounts to a 12-point increase from March of 2014. Those numbers will be encouraging for Democrats nationally.
All this creates a dilemma for Republican candidates: How to appeal to your party’s Trump-loving base during the primary, and keep them energized during the general election, while also appealing to a broader swath of voters in November?
Democrats will face their own set of challenges as well. In an interview with the Washington Examiner last month, Vukmir posited that extreme anti-Trumpism, like extreme anti-Walkerism, could turn off voters in November and boost Republicans who have been clear winners in four fo the last five November general elections. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., will have to navigate that question, maintaining the energy of her own base without losing voters who may dislike Trump and his policies, but also dislike the extremism of his opponents. The poll found Baldwin’s favorability rating to be slightly underwater at 37 percent favorable to 39 percent unfavorable, down from the same time last year.
Embedded in the poll’s findings are some helpful lessons for national observers, including the clear enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans — especially in a state Trump won — and the president’s near 90-percent approval rating among likely GOP voters.
