WISCONSIN — If any of the campaigns for governor or U.S. Senate in Wisconsin were looking for good news in the Exclusive Spectrum News/Siena College poll released on Tuesday, there’s at least one silver lining to the tight results.
“All the candidates are holding their party,” Steven Greenberg, a pollster and communications consultant with Siena College, told Spectrum News 1. “Evers and Barnes are holding 90%-plus of Democrats; Johnson and Michels are holding 90%-plus of Republicans.”
The poll showed that among likely voters, 48% favored Mandela Barnes for U.S. Senate, while 47% favored Sen. Ron Johnson. The poll has an overall margin of error of +/- 4.5 percentage points.
“Barnes has a slightly better favorability rating, but he’s also less well known than Sen. Johnson,” Greenberg said.
The poll showed that among likely voters, 49% favored Gov. Tony Evers, while 44% favored challenger Tim Michels.
Still, with less than 50 days to go until the November election, Greenberg said none of the campaigns can afford to coast over the next 7 weeks. He noted the key in Wisconsin general elections will likely be independent voters, who he said are leaning Republican for both the senate and gubernatorial races.
“There’s a lot of work to do over the next 49 days,” Greenberg added.
But not every result in the poll was as tight as the election races.
The poll showed 62% of Wisconsinites were strongly or somewhat opposed to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. About half of that, 31%, said they supported it.
“Certainly that is an issue that nationally, Democrats are trying to take advantage of,” Greenberg said.
The poll showed only 5% of likely Wisconsin voters want a total ban on abortion, while 37% want a law that prohibits abortion except in cases of rape, incest or if the mother’s health is at risk. Twenty-nine percent of likely Wisconsin voters said they would support a law that allows abortions up to the 20th week of pregnancy. Twenty-two percent said they would support a law that would allow abortions up to and beyond the 20th week of pregnancy.
Watch the full interview above.