In the Badger State, Turnout Really Will Be Everything
Donald Trump leads Joe Biden in the battleground state of Wisconsin, according to the Badger State Poll for November, 2023. While all three matchups are statistical ties, the margin in one of the three ballot tests falls right on the sampling error.
The survey was conducted by BIG DATA POLL less than one year out as part of the Rust Belt Poll in the “Big Six” that includes Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The former president led the current president across ballot tests in every state save for Minnesota, which was a dead heat.
Worth noting, voters who participated in the 2020 presidential election told BIG DATA POLL they voted evenly for Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump at 48.3%, very close to the actual results (49.6% to 48.9%) in Wisconsin. In a hypothetical 3-way matchup with a generic third party candidate, the two are tied at 39.1% to 39.1%% among 2020 voters. However, among non-2020 voters, Mr. Trump leads by a much larger 13.6% margin, though the group is still largely undecided.
The final Badger State Poll released just days before the 2020 U.S. presidential election by BIG DATA POLL found Mr. Biden leading Mr. Trump by roughly 2 points, 48.2% to 45.5%. It was conducted as part of the Election 2020 Public Polling Project.
Among registered voters who were also given a generic third party option, Mr. Trump leads Mr. Biden by roughly 2 points, 38.6% to 37.1%, with 14.2% choosing a generic third party and 6.4% undecided. Among likely voters, the two are tied at 39.0% with a generic third party option taking 14.1% and 6.1% remaining undecided. Only 1.9% say they would not vote.
“Several other states in the Big Six we surveyed for this study, have a long history of granting ballot access to non-two party candidates,” BIG DATA POLL Director Rich Baris, said. “In 2020, there were a total of five candidates on the ballot for president in Wisconsin.”
“While we’ll be adding a simple head-to-head in the next round for the Rust Belt Poll, we’re still going to be more focused on the real-world ballot question.”
In the hypothetical matchup including independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Mr. Trump leads among registered voters by 2 points, a 38.7% to 36.5% margin. RFK notched 9.4% and another 7.9% opted for another generic third party candidate. With Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent candidate Cornel West also on the ballot, Mr. Trump leads Mr. Biden 39.4% to 35.9%, with 10.3% choosing RFK, 1.7% for Mr. West and only 0.5% for Ms. Stein.
Among likely voters on the full ballot, the Mr. Trump leads 40.0% to 37.7%, with 9.6% for Kennedy, 1.8% for West and 0.4% for Stein. Only 1.5% would not vote and 9.0% were undecided.
“Two findings in Wisconsin largely mirror what we found across the Big Six,” Director Baris add. “First, President Trump generally benefits from higher turnout among lower propensity voters, meaning President Biden benefits from the likely voter model.”
“Secondly, there comes a point at which the former president’s level of support simply refuses to fall further. We could add a hundred candidates to the ballot, and it still wouldn’t budge.”
Presidential Nominations
The former president holds a large 41.4-point lead over the 2024 Republican primary field for the presidential nomination at 54.2%. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley trail significantly with just 12.8% to 12.2%, respectively. Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy rounds out the top four at 6.7%.
No other candidate breaks 5%. Only 0.9% chose someone else and 8.8% remain undecided.
On the Democratic side, President Biden is also dominating the field over Marianne Williamson and Rep. Dean Phillips, D. Minn., 71.2% to 4.4% and 3.0%, respectively. Another 5.3% chose “someone else” and a significant 16.0% were still undecided.
Methodology
The Badger State Poll interviewed 870 registered voters (validated) from November 18 to November 23, 2023.The overall survey sampling error is ±3.4% and sampling errors for the presidential primaries are ±4.5%. Interviews conducted online are sourced through Lucid (CINT) and phone interviews including P2P SMS and text-to-online are sourced from the Aristotle National Voter File Database. Likely primary voters were screened for eligibility by registration and intent due to closed primary system. Results were weighted for gender, age, race, education, and region. It is important to note that sampling errors for subgroups are higher. All BIG DATA POLL publicly conducted surveys are crowdfunded via the Public Polling Project, supplemented if necessary by BIG DATA POLL and are NOT funded by or affiliated with any candidate, campaign, committee, or political entity. Full and interactive crosstabs can be viewed on MarketSight.
