Marquette pollster Franklin: Trump victory in Wisconsin was widespread but not a 'landslide'

The victories in Wisconsin of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and incumbent U.S. Sen. Democrat Tammy Baldwin didn’t surprise veteran pollster Charles Franklin.

“The Trump victory is quite widespread across the state, but it’s not very deep in percentage terms,” Franklin, architect of the Marquette University Law School poll, said at a Milwaukee Press Club event Wednesday.

“To call it a ‘wave’ election or worse, a ‘landslide’ election, I think, really ignores the closeness that is still an important part of the story.”

More: Marquette poll puts Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in a dead heat in Wisconsin

Franklin said the Wisconsin results of the last seven presidential elections have been within 1%.

“We were the closest state in the entire country,” Franklin said. “Yet, despite all of that, we added yet another 100,000 plus new voters... we’re still not sick and tired of elections and staying home.”

Here are some of Franklin's takeaways from the election:

Fundamental issues held strong

For months, high inflation and the public's negative view of the economy dominated headlines and was a key point in the campaign season. The Biden administration was having difficulties changing the perception on the economy and Vice President Kamala Harris couldn’t separate herself enough in the eyes of the voters, Franklin said.

“We had 38% saying the economy is the most important issue, and Trump has a 10 point advantage on that,” Franklin said. “We had 15% say abortion is the most important issue and Harris has a substantial advantage on that. But 15% is a lot less than 38%.”

Voter concern about immigration was second or third in the Marquette poll throughout the year, Franklin said, noting Trump also had an advantage.

“Those things were baked in throughout the period of the Biden administration, they weren’t creations of the campaign, let alone the last three months of the campaign,” Franklin said. “These fundamentals were built in there and if the Biden administration had found a way to deal with them earlier, then maybe you would have had a better result or a different result from their point of view.”

Franklin also pointed out that Biden’s job approval has been between 41% to 43% for most of the term.

“Presidents and presidents’ parties rarely get elected with their job approval is that low,” Franklin said. “That was utterly foreseeable for literally the last several years. That if that didn’t move, he or his party was going to be at a deep disadvantage going into the election.”

Baldwin outperforms Harris

The final Marquette poll before Election Day showed Baldwin with a 2 point lead and Harris with 1 point lead, both well within the margins of error.

The results on Baldwin were more accurate than Harris, but Franklin pointed out Baldwin spent a lot of time going to different areas of the state in-between election years.

It also helped Baldwin that Republican Eric Hovde had to spend much of the year introducing himself to voters.

“Over 80% didn’t know who he was in January this year and he got that whittled down steadily to about 15% in the final poll who still couldn’t say if they had a favorable or unfavorable view of him,” Franklin said. “But on the information side, it took Hovde quite a while to build up recognition and favorability among Republicans.”

Trump gained votes in other parts of the state

For many election cycles, Republicans relied on voters in Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington counties (the WOW counties) to turn out in big numbers to offset Democrat gains in Milwaukee.

Harris out-performed Biden in the WOW counties but Trump still won statewide.

“Under-performing in the WOW could be made up by over-performing everywhere else, and that is simply the way to look at it,” Franklin said.

As part of the campaign strategy, Democrats tried to lure “disgruntled” Republican voters. For instance, Harris campaigned with former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney in Wisconsin.

“I think there are disgruntled Republicans,” Franklin said. “In our data we were seeing about 13% of Republicans had an unfavorable view of Trump during the fall. That was down from 30% before the primary season began. So, he had substantially improved his standing with reluctant Republicans.”

Marquette poll results were within the margin of error

Some pollsters have had their reputations tarnished again after the results of the campaign, but Franklin said that might be a reflection of what people’s attitudes are toward polls.

“People simultaneously denigrate polls and say they’re awful; and then then complain when they’re off by a percentage point, or ignore that we all say there’s a margin of error here,” Franklin said. “That reflects our deep desire to see more information, to have more belief and certainty to what the race is going to be. But it’s a bit of a problem for pollsters because we can’t be that good.”

More: Marquette poll takeaways: Independents lean toward Harris, half avoid talking politics

Franklin said for the last several elections the average margin of error for the poll was about 2.2% in either direction.

“With this race, we were off by 1.9% on the presidential and off by 1.1% on the Senate,” Franklin said. “But someone would be perfectly appropriate to say ‘Yes, but you had Harris ahead by 1 point in the final poll.’ That’s absolutely true, with a 4.4% margin of error.”

Polling is getting harder

Franklin said changes to the Marquette poll after 2022 election were driven by expense and the difficulty in reaching voters.

“People don’t answer their phones so much anymore,” Franklin said. “The cost of reaching people had continued to escalate over the last 10 years. But we were also concerned about the quality of the sample with that small response rate.”

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Marquette pollster Franklin: Trump victory widespread, not very deep