December 20, 2015

4 theories about why Trump's poll numbers are comparatively low in Wisconsin.

 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Craig Gilbert speculates.

The theories are: 1. Trump lacks the "niceness" that's the style in Wisconsin. (But Trump does do well in other niceness-oriented midwestern states). 2. Scott Walker, despite his withdrawal, is still affecting Wisconsinites. 3. Local talk radio is attacking Trump. 4. Wisconsinites are more politically aware and engaged and thus less affected by the name recognition factor.

22 comments:

gspencer said...

5. There're a sizable number of lefties in WI.

Karen of Texas said...

That "niceness" must be only where politics is concerned. Admittedly the Wisconsin base of friends I have, a scant dozen, is a miniscule sampling, but I have found all of them to be fairly blunt and not too nice, in a snarky, biting way when you disagree with them - especially politically. Maybe Trump lacks the subtle snark? They tend to value education as the be all and end all - Sarah Palin?! Community college!! *eye roll* - and perhaps Trump seems/sounds uneducated to them?

They do take great pride in being a purple state - Walker kind of killed that in their eyes. This crowd, btw, is mostly in their late 30s/early 40s.

Bob R said...

I think 4 is wrong as a general proposition. (Even Gilbert downplays it.) But it may have real meaning combined with Walker. Walker's candidacy may have caused people in Wisconsin (including local talk radio hosts) to spend more time thinking about the presidential race.

David Begley said...

1 and 4 and add that the fine people of Wisconsin are the best and smartest in America!

traditionalguy said...

Maybe Wisconsin feels a lot like Scott Walker did after Trump suddenly made his existence irrelevant, Harley Davidson and all. Trump is the last of the Independents, but is running as a GOP guy. And that seems unfair to the Walker GOP run..

Now the thought of Trump reminds them of all that.

Michael K said...

Walker was successful in action, not talk. I suspect that might be a reason why Wisconsin is resisting the frustration that drives Trump support elsewhere. Ryan is doing what he can to stimulate Trump support but it is still early and the voters may not yet have focused on the disastrous budget deal that Ryan created.

Fritz said...

Yes, your state supreme court has certainly shown the nation the innate niceness of Wisconsinites.

amielalune said...

David Begley:

I heard they don't even show "Jerry Springer" or "Keeping up with the Kardashians" in Wisconsin. The entire state is just too smart to watch them.

Mick said...

Or, more Wisconsinites are idiot left wing ideologues, like many of the posters found here. Even this blog, which self ids as "conservative" is only relatively conservative versus the rest of Wisconsin thought. "Law prof" is certainly not a "conservative".

Hagar said...

Substantial portions of the electorate no longer have landline telephones.

Mark said...

I have heard a fair share of #3 by righty talk radio in WI.

Carnifex said...

I on principle disagree with any judgement that puts the ones being judged in too beneficial a light. Wisconsonites are too politically aware to fall for Trump's name recognition...please. That would insult me if I were one myself.

mikee said...

I looked at the article. There is not enough numerical information provided to validate or repudiate the article's conclusions, which are stated outright rather than determined by any mathematical means the reader can follow.

What were the number of Rep, Dem, Ind voters questioned? Not provided.
What were the questions? Not provided.
Are "Unfavorable" responses compiled from multiple categories or just one? Not provided.

What I see when I look at the info provided is that 36% of Republican voters favor Trump. That's enough to win the primary. I note the article did not say anything about that.

alan markus said...

I think the results being talked about were amongst Republicans. I would think the "left" would show up in the Democrat part of the poll results.

Sammy Finkelman said...

I would go for

3. Local talk radio is attacking Trump.

Plus Walker is against Trump. It isn't though, that Walker was preventing Trump from getting the kind of attention he got in many other states. Trump's 20% seems to be about where he was nationally before Paris - well he was in the mid to high 20s.

I think it is underestimated how much talk radio, and other non-mainstream media, is affecting things in the Republican primary.

But please explain what exactly is going on with talk radio is Wisconsin.

It cculd be that Jeb Bush needs to bottle it and distill it, (things said in talk radio in Wisconsin) and run it in New Hampshire and Iowa.

Sammy Finkelman said...

I think you can also addL

4. Wisconsinites are more politically aware and engaged and thus less affected by the name recognition factor.

But that should also be true in Iowa and New Hampshire, and may become more true as it gets closer to the caucus and primary. But there, there may be higher local name recognition, de to campaigning: Ted Cruz in Iowa and Chris Christie in New Hampshire. Marco Rubio is not concentrating on any place. Ben Carson's support has been draining but he may get some of it back if he can show knowledge.

Is there more support going to the less well known candidatesin Wisconsin than in some otehr states? I think some, Kasich, probably only have home state support.
Now if support is morr scattered, it might indicate greater politial awareness.

By the way, Carly Fiorina made a good appearance on Fox News Sunday today, although she was obviously "pre-recorded" in much of what she said. An interesting thing was that she argued they had bad algorthms for looking through the metadata. Actually, I think they weren't looking through the meta data at all. And she persists in justifying wrong statements - claiming that David Petraeus was indeed fired because of what he told Obama and citing as proof the difference in his treatment as compared to Hillary Clinton. David Petraeus voluntarily resigned, against Obama's wishes.

When Chris wallce brought up the question she stopped him before he finished saying 4out of 5 but the correction was another name, who retired before Obama became president.

Carly Fiorina does this type of thing - she did it with the Planned Parenthood video, claiming to have seen something that just wasn't there. Now she is claiming that David Petraeus was fired for not telling Obama what he wanted to hear when that is not true.

He resigned and the reason was because of an extramarital affair, that the pro-terrorist moles [technically pro-some-terrorist-sponsering-state moles *] at the CIA found out about - because everything going out of CIA HQ is monitored, but they couldn't use, because they are not supposed to listen to it - and so a false complaint was lodged about emails that Paula Broadhurst had not in fact sent to Jill Kelley, and an FBI investigation started that wound up discovering the affair and also that he had let his biographer/mistress look at his notebooks.

* the people responsible for the spontaneous attack at Benghazi theory.



. Carly Fiorina made a good appearance on Fix News Sunday today, although she was obviously "pre-recorded" in much of what she said. She argued they had bad algorthms for looking through the metadata. Actually, I think they weren't looking through the meta data at all. And she persists in justifying wrong statements - claiming that Davod Oetraeus was indeedd fired because of what he told Obama and citing as proof the difference in his treatment as compared to Hillary Clinton. David Petraeus voluntarily resigned, against Obama's wishes.


Sammy Finkelman said...

Another reason could be that Wisconsin has no party registration, so you have a wider range of people saying they would vote in the Republican primary.

National polls probably ask first what party they feel closer to, and this may exclude people, or cause people to exclude themselves, from the sample.

The more extreme Trump gets the fewer people say they are Republican maybe.

Polls these days are getting only what - a 9% response rate - it's gotten pretty tricky tryinbg to adjust the numbers. The best way maybe is to ask lots of other questions, (not just age, race sex and income) and normalize all the questions against each other it to sales numbers or wherever the answer is known.

Example: Q. Have you seen Star Wars? The answer is known, and the pollster tries to weigh correctly the yes and no answers.

Hagar said...

And those who still have landlines sceen the calls they take through an answering thingie.

And the Republican establishment is not the only one that has ignored a large segment of its base. This coming election (the poll that counts!) may have a surprising number of traditional Democrats voting for Trump.

gadfly said...

Perhaps Wisconsinites don't watch "Reality" TV and have therefore not taken to - or perhaps many have done business with Trump companies (like me) and are not impressed with his slimy business ethics.

Sam L. said...

I'm guessing the polling was in Madison and Milwaukee.

n.n said...

Trump is too open and honest, which offends a large minority of Americans and illegal aliens. He needs to adopt the doctrine of pro-choice (similar to the Islamic principle of Taqiya) that enables its user to speak and act in contradictory ways.

Phil 314 said...

I call it the "Althouse effect"