Walker's numbers continue to get worse

Scott Walker's popularity has continued to decline over the last three months and Wisconsin voters now say they would vote to recall him if there was an election today. They also say they would pick either Russ Feingold or Tom Barrett over Walker in a head to head match up.

43% of voters now approve of the job Walker is doing to 54% who disapprove. When PPP polled the state in late February it was 46% of voters approving to 52% disapproval. Walker's numbers now are virtually identical to where they were before with Democrats and Republicans but with independents he's seen his popularity continue to decline from a 45/53 approval spread to a 40/56 one.

Voters split evenly in February at 48% on the question of recalling Walker but now the needle has moved towards bare majority support for removing him early from office. 50% say they would support a recall to 47% who are opposed. That Walker's disapproval is 54% but the support for recall is only 50% shows there are still some voters who dislike him but wouldn't go so far as to support removing him from office, but there aren't many.

Although voters are pretty evenly divided on whether they would support a recall there's less doubt about who they would vote for if there actually was a recall election. They say they would pick Feingold over Walker by a 52-42 margin and Barrett over him by a 50-43 spread. In both of those match ups Democrats are more committed to replacing Walker than Republicans are to keeping him, and independents go on the side of swapping him out for Feingold or Barrett as well.

It's impossible to say whether Democrats will be able to sustain this strong anti-Walker sentiment all the way through the time a recall election would actually be held. But it bodes well for them that as Wisconsin has left the headlines, at least nationally, Walker's numbers have just continued to get worse at home. And they have two potential replacements in Feingold (51/38 favorability) and Barrett (41/34) who are pretty well known and decently well liked on a statewide basis.

The way these numbers are shaking out in Wisconsin reflects what we're seeing a lot of places. Independents are moving back toward the Democrats after being strongly supportive of Republicans last year. And Democrats are more unified than Republicans in many places right now, a contrast to last year where a decent number of Democratic voters supported Republicans with almost voters coming back in the other direction.

And the implications of this finding are probably limited for the upcoming State Senate recall elections but by a 50-42 margin voters in the state would rather have the Democrats in control of that body than the Republicans.

Full results here