A new Marquette University Law School Poll is under fire as a Democrat-friendly push poll after it specifically named Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany when asking voters whether it was “right or wrong” for him to oppose a $1.8 billion surplus deal featuring tax cuts, property tax relief and school funding, while lumping unnamed Democratic gubernatorial candidates together despite Kelda Roys and Francesca Hong actually voting against the bill.
The poll of Wisconsin adults, released Tuesday, found 80% believe the Legislature should have passed the Evers-GOP negotiated package, which included rebate checks, special education funding boosts, and exemptions from taxes on tips and overtime pay. Just 11% opposed it, and 9% had no opinion, with no significant partisan split reported. The deal died in the Senate after all 15 Democrats and three Republicans, including Tiffany, voted no.
Yet the survey question singled out Tiffany by name on his opposition while referring only to “Democratic candidates for governor” as a group. Both Roys, in the state senate, and Hong, as a state representative and leading Democrat contender for governor, publicly opposed and voted against the measure.
The lopsided framing bundled all Democratic candidates under one heading while spotlighting the lone GOP gubernatorial candidate, even though Democrats differed on the proposal. This one-sided, positive framing, with no counterarguments about long-term spending or fiscal risks and no question to measure voter awareness of the proposal’s details, was among the many methodological red flags in this poll.
The Marquette Law poll made no effort to inform respondents that Democrat leaders and their gubernatorial hopefuls were responsible for killing the tax relief package, not Tiffany.
