WPR-St Norbert's poll finds Walker with a slim lead over Barrett

A new poll of likely recall election voters finds Governor Scott Walker with a slim lead over Tom Barrett.

The poll by St. Norbert's College and WPR questioned 406 likely voters in the last week.  It found 50-percent favor Republican Governor Scott Walker, and 45-percent support Democrat Tom Barrett.  That's within the poll's five percentage point margin of error. The poll is conducted by Wendy Scattergood, an assistant professor at the college. She says half of those polled who said they planned to vote for Walker cited economic reasons.

"What they thought his greatest success has been is controlling the budget and the deficit," she says.  "And then collective bargaining came in at number two.  Over 50-percent told us controlling the deficit was the number one issue."

Forty-seven percent of poll respondents who said they would vote for Barrett indicated the governor's character is why Walker should be removed from office.  Likewise, character was listed by 72 percent of Barrett supporters as the reason the Milwaukee mayor should occupy the governor's office.

"Really the big thing there is they think he's a unifier that he can really bring people together," she says.  "A lot of people just said, 'Bring peace to Wisconsin.' "

When poll respondents were asked to weigh in on the direction of the state, 49-percent indicated Wisconsin was headed in the right direction. When the same question was asked last fall, 43 percent who felt that way.