Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes leads incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) in a new poll of the Wisconsin Senate race on the strength of the Democrat’s advantage with independent voters.
The Marquette Law School survey showed Barnes leading Johnson among registered voters 51% to 44%, an advantage built on the lieutenant governor’s 52% to 38% edge with independents. Barnes, fresh off of his victory in the Democratic primary, also enjoyed better favorable ratings than Johnson, who is seeking a third term. In the poll, 37% had favorable impressions of the Democrat, and 22% viewed him negatively, compared to the incumbent’s 38% favorable and 47% unfavorable rating.
The Marquette Law School poll was in the field Aug. 10-15 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.
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Barnes’s early lead was not the only good news for Democrats in the survey. Gov. Tony Evers (D) narrowly led Republican challenger Tim Michels 45% to 43%, with 7% backing independent candidate Joan Beglinger. Evers also boasted a small 41% to 37% lead among independents. Still, the margin of Evers’s lead has to be encouraging for Michels, who just emerged from a divisive Republican primary. Michels was endorsed in that contest by former President Donald Trump.
Regarding Trump, his numbers in this key White House battleground state are mediocre, at least according to the Marquette Law School survey.
Fifty-nine percent of Republican voters said they wanted the former president to run again in 2024; 66% of independents do not. And Trump’s favorable ratings in Wisconsin slightly trail President Joe Biden’s. Overall, voters in the state give the former president a 38% favorable and 57% unfavorable rating.
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Biden’s job approval rating clocks in at an otherwise dismal 40% favorable and 55% unfavorable rating.
