David Crowley is no longer a blank slate. That is the problem for his campaign.
The new Marquette Law School Poll finds 31 percent of Wisconsin voters view the Democratic nominee favorably and 44 percent view him unfavorably. His unfavorable rating rose 15 points from August to September. His favorable rating slipped 2 points. The share who said they had not heard enough about him fell from 38 percent to 25 percent. Voters learned his name. They did not like what they heard.
The issue test is worse for him. Asked whether they agree with Crowley’s positions, 32 percent say they mostly agree, and 39 percent say they mostly disagree. Another 28 percent say they do not know enough. For Republican Tom Tiffany, 40 percent say they mostly agree with his proposals, 41 percent mostly disagree, and 19 percent have not heard enough. More voters side with Tiffany’s agenda than Crowley’s. Crowley is underwater on his own platform. Tiffany is even, with a larger share who already know where he stands.
The collapse is sharpest where a general election is won or lost. Among independents, Crowley’s unfavorables climbed from 25 percent to 39 percent. His favorables among that group dropped from 26 percent to 18 percent. Republicans who once had only a vague impression now have a hard one. GOP unfavorables of Crowley jumped from 50 percent to 75 percent. Republicans who had not heard enough fell from 43 percent to 21 percent. The opposition is unified. Conservatives are locking in.
Ideology followed the same path. In August, 16 percent called Crowley very liberal. In September, 30 percent did. Those calling him moderate fell from 23 percent to 17 percent. The “liberal” bucket barely moved, from 32 percent to 33 percent. A growing share of the state now parks him on the left flank, not in the middle he tried to occupy after beating Francesca Hong.
That is what a month of paid contrast looks like when the record is real. Tiffany and allied groups have spent September putting Crowley’s Milwaukee County file on television: five property tax increases, a near-doubling of the sales tax, a cake celebration after the hike, votes against a 10 percent middle-class income tax cut, and a county jail tablet program that let inmates harass victims. Crowley gave them more tape, refusing to rule out another tax increase in his next county budget and flying to California for a Kamala Harris fundraiser.
Marquette’s horse race still shows Crowley narrowly ahead among likely voters, 49 percent to 46 percent, with the race 46-45 among registered voters. Both gaps sit inside the poll’s margin of error. The image and issues numbers explain why Tiffany closed the August spread. Crowley did not pick up new voters. He converted the unfamiliar into the unfavorable, and is losing the argument on substance.
Name identification is not automatically good news. It is only good if the first impression is yours. Crowley spent August as the guy who beat a socialist in a primary. He spent September as the county executive who raised taxes and called a sales tax hike no burden at all. Voters noticed. Independents noticed most. And when Marquette asked whose positions they agreed with, more of them picked Tiffany.
