Poll: Wisconsin Republican Derrick Van Orden Leads Democrat Brad Pfaff by 12 Points

Republican Derrick Van Orden showed a massive lead against his Democrat opponent, Brad Pfaff, on a recent Cygnal poll for Wisconsin’s open Third Congressional District.

The polling from Cygnal showed that Van Orden holds a substantial 12-point lead over the Democrat. Half of the respondents (50 percent) said they would vote for Van Orden, while only 38 percent said they would vote for Pfaff.

Also, 12.2 percent of the 403 likely voters were undecided on who to vote for in the race less than 80 days away.

Cygnal’s memo noted that data indicated that the “political environment significantly favors Republicans in this district” to fill the open seat left by retiring Democrat Rep. Ron Kind.

The data also suggested that Van Orden holds a significant edge in name identification and favorability, which allowed Van Orden to expand his lead beyond the ten-point lead the Republican candidate had on the generic ballot.

The generic ballot showed that 50.5 percent of the respondents would vote for the generic Republican candidate compared to the 41 percent who would vote for the generic Democrat, with 8.5 percent undecided.

Some of the higher name recognition and his lead could partly be due to Van Orden running in the same district in 2020 and 2022. In 2020, he ran against Kind and was initially running against the Democrat this cycle, as well, until Kind decided to retire after being hammered in the news for accepting thousands of dollars in rent from a seedy massage parlor that advertises on illicit sites, which Breitbart News chronicled.

Additionally, the polling memo showed that Van Orden leads his Democrat opponent by 20 percent with  working class voters in the heavily blue-collar district.

The poll also showed that President Joe Biden’s job approval is deeply underwater in the congressional district, ultimately a bad sign for Democrats running anywhere. Only 43 percent of the poll respondents approved, while 55.3 percent viewed him negatively. Only 1.7 percent said they were unsure.

The Cygnal poll was conducted on behalf of the Congressional Leadership Fund, the top House Republican-aligned Super PAC, with 403 likely voters from August 15 to 18. There was also a margin of error of plus or minus 4.86 percent.

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.