Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll, issued a statement Wednesday explaining why the outcome of the Aug. 11 election was so different from the final polling data released in the gubernatorial primary campaign.
The accuracy of the poll has been in question after Crowley’s surprising victory over the July poll’s front-runner, state Rep. Francesca Hong.
Franklin said the race was complicated by three candidates dropping out, one reentering, in the final month. That was a reference to Crowley, the Milwaukee County executive, who was endorsed by Gov. Tony Evers when he rejoined the primary.
“Campaigns matter, and a chaotic last month in the Wisconsin Democratic primary is a prime example,” Franklin said in a post in the Marquette University Law School Faculty blog.
In the Marquette Law School Poll’s final survey of Wisconsin voters, taken from July 22-27, Hong was favored by 38% of those polled. At the same time, 34% of respondents said they were undecided.
Franklin said Hong’s unofficial vote total in the primary, at 39.3%, was close to her total in the final poll.
The big difference came with Crowley, who surged from 7% in the poll to 39.8% of the primary vote.
Franklin also said the demographics of the race showed that older voters were both the least supportive of Hong and the most undecided age group.
“They also said they were more likely to vote than did younger voters, providing a potential advantage to Crowley, though they had not settled on him at the time of the final poll,” he wrote.
Franklin also said turnout was much larger than in recent Democratic primary contests: an unofficial 792,009, compared to 640,247 in the 2024 Senate primary and 538,857 in the 2018 gubernatorial primary.
“We don’t know the makeup of that surge beyond the polling results, but this turnout was considerably larger than expected,” he said.
