Democratic former Senator Russ Feingold has taken a commanding lead over incumbent GOP Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) in Wisconsin, surging out to an 12-point lead in the latest Breitbart News Network/Gravis Marketing poll.
In the poll of 1,102 registered voters conducted on Oct. 4, Feingold–at 53 percent–tops Johnson’s 41 percent, a 12 percent spread between them.
This part of the Breitbart/Gravis Wisconsin poll means Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee for president, is trending better in the Badger State against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton than the sitting GOP U.S. Senator there. This news comes as Johnson will campaign with Trump–and House Speaker Paul Ryan, who’s also from Wisconsin, and the state’s governor Scott Walker–in Wisconsin on Saturday.
“Johnson is in serious trouble and when it is over, he will have to assess his decision to run a separate campaign from Donald Trump,” said Doug Kaplan, the managing partner of Gravis Marketing, the Florida-based polling company that conducted the poll. The poll carries a three percent margin of error with a 95 percent level of confidence.
“In 2010, Johnson beat Feingold, 52 percent to 47 percent in what was the Tea Party wave election,” said Kaplan.
“We don’t know yet if 2016 will develop into a wave election, but the dynamics of Feingold and Johnson have been locked in for months, and I don’t see even a wave saving Johnson,” he said.
In the Oct. 4 Breitbart/Gravis poll, Trump trails his Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton with 43 percent to her 46 percent when the presidential question was asked the second time.
Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell told Breitbart News that the 2016 election is still very volatile, so to better measure voter presidential preferences, respondents were asked the question of who they would vote for twice. The first time came in the middle of the survey after some attitudinal questions about the respondents’ thoughts on the candidates and general mood, and then at the end of the survey after being asked about several key issues in the 2016 race before asking demographic questions.
In the first asking, Clinton led Trump with 48 percent to his 40 percent, Libertarian Gary Johnson was the choice of four percent, and Green Party nominee Jill Stein came in at one percent, he said. Johnson and Stein were unchanged.
Inside the details of the senate race poll, Feingold has the support of 95 percent of Clinton voters and 40 percent of Trump voters.
Johnson had, earlier in the campaign, said he would campaign with Trump regularly.
“Stump with Trump?” Johnson told CNN when asked if he would campaign with Trump way back in March. “Just because it rhymes: It’d be the Ronald (and) the Donald.”
But Johnson has not campaigned with Trump at all, although he will on Saturday.
The poll was conducted with random automated phone calls and a Gravis Internet panel of cell phone users. Results were weighted to match a proprietary turnout model. The poll carries a margin of error of three percent with a 95 percent level of confidence.
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