As the mid-term elections approach, Wisconsin voters aren't happy. That means both parties will be losing sleep.

Craig Gilbert
Special to the Journal Sentinel

Red flags abound for both parties in Wisconsin’s big election battles this year.

Democrats’ worries include President Biden’s low approval, a sour public mood, inflation woes and the long history of mid-term elections, which is a pretty dark one for the party in power.

Republicans should be able to exploit all this. But they have a “leader” (Donald Trump) who’s more unpopular than Biden. They have an incumbent U.S. senator, Ron Johnson, who’s suffering his highest negative ratings ever. And the GOP’s top target this fall, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, is looking like no pushover, with popularity ratings that are better than Johnson’s, better than Trump’s and better than Biden’s in Wisconsin.

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History tells us to expect a very good Republican year. And that may well happen here.

But so far, the Wisconsin polling is telling a more complicated story, with danger signs and deep uncertainties for both sides.

This is a closer look at that polling in an election year with massive consequences for the state’s political future.

Related:Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson announces run for re-election, breaking pledge to serve only two terms

Related:Gov. Tony Evers isn't endorsing any candidates in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate

Gov. Tony Evers has voter approval ratings that sugget he will not be a pushover for Republicans.

What should keep Democrats awake at night?

  • First and foremost, Biden’s negative job ratings. They’re a fundamental drag on Democrats in the 2022 mid-terms. The president’s “net approval” in Wisconsin was minus 9 in a poll conducted late last month by the Marquette Law School (43% approved, 52% disapproved). Combining the last two Marquette polls taken in late October 2021 and late February of this year, Biden is minus 23 with men in Wisconsin (36% approve, 59% disapprove), minus 17 with independents and minus 21 with rural voters. For a Democrat, the 79-year-old president is struggling mightily with younger voters: only 38% of voters under 30 approve of his performance while 54% disapprove. 
  • Inflation is souring views of the economy. Two-thirds of Wisconsin voters say they’re “very concerned” about inflation, and another 28% say they’re “somewhat concerned.” There are big partisan gaps on this question. But inflation alarm is high across demographic and regional lines. There have been signs in the polling that other issues, such as crime and education, could hurt Democrats this cycle.
  • A majority of Wisconsin voters (53%) say the state is on the “wrong track,” and just 39% say it’s headed in the “right direction.” This pattern stretches back to last summer, when voters here grew markedly more pessimistic. The last time the “wrong track” number was this high in the state was seven years ago.
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson is undergoing his highest negative ratings ever.

What should keep Republicans awake at night?

  • The most visible and dominant figure in the GOP is a very unpopular ex-president. In Wisconsin, the public has not only failed to warm toward Trump since he left office — the opposite has occurred. Just before the 2020 presidential election, Trump was viewed favorably by 44% of Wisconsin voters and unfavorably by 54%. Those numbers declined last summer and fall, and got even worse last month, with 36% now viewing him favorably and 57% unfavorably. This doesn’t mean Democrats can expect to saddle every Republican candidate with Trump’s baggage. But it’s no help to the GOP that the best-known Republican in the land demands fealty from his party’s candidates but is broadly disliked outside his political base.
  • In the midst of his bid for a third term, Johnson has a net favorability rating of minus 12 (33% of Wisconsin voters view him favorably and 45% view him unfavorably). These are his worst numbers in 10 years of Marquette polling. His net favorability rating is minus 25 with women, minus 29 with moderates, minus 23 with college grads and minus 14 with independents. Two caveats here: We don’t know who his Democratic opponent will be (elections are choices not referenda).  And Johnson has bounced back from poor ratings before. His numbers plummeted the year before he last won re-election in 2016. But by this point in that election cycle, Johnson was already rebounding in the polls. That hasn’t happened yet in 2022.  In Marquette’s last poll, 61% of voters — and a third of Republicans — said they had little or no trust in Johnson as a source of information about coronavirus vaccines and treatments, an issue about which he has been very outspoken.  “He’s now in a clearly negative position with maybe time to come back, but we haven’t seen that change in direction for him yet,” said Marquette pollster Charles Franklin.
  • Finally, there’s the governor’s race, the most important contest for both sides in Wisconsin this year. The sobering news for Republicans is that incumbent Democrat Tony Evers has polled pretty well throughout his term. In the last Marquette poll, 50% approved of his performance and 41% disapproved. Those numbers are not only much better than Johnson’s, but they’re much better than Biden’s, suggesting Evers has at least a chance this fall to overcome the drag of Biden’s negative job ratings. In Marquette’s polling, Evers’ support among Democrats is a little more intense than Biden’s, and his opposition among Republican voters is considerably less intense. In 18 Marquette polls since he took office, Evers has had only one negative approval rating: last October. But that was basically a wash (45% approval, 46% disapproval).  

“Evers is seen as a juicy target by Republicans but his overall approval trend has been pretty solid,” said Franklin.

The case for Evers’ vulnerability rests partly on the history of mid-term elections, which are typically tough for the party of the president; partly on Biden’s negative job ratings; and partly on the fact that a slight majority of Wisconsin voters have been saying since last summer that the state is on the wrong track.

But whether the “wrong track” question is a pure barometer for a governor’s re-election prospects is one that political experts disagree on (Franklin is skeptical). In Wisconsin, which has divided government, the voters who think the state is on the wrong track include about two-thirds of Republicans (whose mood darkened markedly after Biden won the presidency); about half of independents; and more than a third of Democrats, most of whom approve of Evers but are unhappy with the Republican Party. 

In other words, the "wrong track" number is picking up a lot of different things: true discontent with political leaders; reaction to both state and national conditions; and voters in both parties upset about different things and viewing the governor in very different ways. It’s not good for Evers that 53% of Wisconsin voters think the state is on the wrong track, but it doesn’t mean that 53% of voters want him out of office.  

So, what does the election landscape look like in Wisconsin less than eight months before the election?

We have marquee races for U.S. Senate and governor that are truly open-ended. Neither Johnson nor Evers has an opponent yet. That will be decided in the state’s August primaries. No one running in those two primaries has name recognition above 50%.

The state’s Democratic governor has pretty decent approval ratings. But he has to worry about the downward pull of a Democratic president with much worse numbers, generalized voter discontent, and the tendency in mid-terms for the out-party to be more mobilized and independents to punish the party in power.

Some of those same factors could boost the state’s Republican senator, but his public image has grown more negative in the past year, complicating his re-election bid.

Can Republican Johnson take advantage of the national landscape in this mid-term election? Can Democrat Evers overcome it? How politically effective will their challengers prove to be? Will internal divisions hamper either party? And what role will an unpopular president and an even more unpopular ex-president play in these contests?

These are all unknowns in a state that is deeply polarized and evenly divided, and where the margin between winning and losing is often remarkably thin.

We know voters here aren’t very happy.  But we don’t know exactly how they are going to express that this fall.