JANESVILLE, Wisconsin — House Speaker Paul Ryan should coast to reelection here despite a scare from Republican businessman Paul Nehlen, a new poll shows.
The Remington Research Group survey conducted on Aug. 3 found that Ryan leads Nehlen 80 percent to 14 percent. A minimal six percent say they are undecided. The survey was of 1,157 likely primary voters and has a margin of error of three points.
The survey also found that 80 percent of respondents found Ryan favorable, with just 14 percent finding him unfavorable and six percent having no opinion. Nehlen, meanwhile, was viewed by 16 percent as favorable while 47 percent view him as unfavorable and 37 percent are unsure.
The wild card here is Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president whom Ryan has used his position as Speaker of the House to undermine whenever he can. A majority of those surveyed, 52 percent, view Trump as favorable while just 32 percent view Trump as unfavorable and 16 percent have no opinion.
The poll isn’t good news for Nehlen who—despite scarce polling in the district that has usually been bad for him and good for Ryan—has put Ryan on his heels politically throughout the course of the campaign. Nehlen’s campaign has forced Speaker Ryan to change his position on the Trans Pacific Partnership and publicly claim that he supports border security even though he opposes building Trump’s wall on the border. Ryan is also being forced to campaign for the first time in the nearly 20 years that he has been in Congress, albeit Ryan is running a controlled campaign tightly monitored by his political operatives.
The election is on Tuesday here.