Wis. GOP U.;S. Senate Race Tightens, Thompson Losing Ground

August 1, 2012

The red “GOP” logo used by the party for its website (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

July 31, 2012 Close 3 way contest for GOP in Wisconsin

David Dewhurst tonight became just the latest in a line of establishment Republicans to lose in Senate primaries this year, and it looks Tommy Thompson could be next on the list. PPP’s newest Wisconsin poll finds Eric Hovde leading with 28% to 25% for Thompson and Mark Neumann, and 13% for Jeff Fitzgerald.

Thompson’s seen a precipitous decline in his standing with GOP voters over the last 5 months. In February he was at 39%. By early July he had dropped to 29% in our polling and he’s continued to decline now to his 25% standing. His personal image has taken a big hit as well. Where his favorability with primary voters earlier in the year was a +47 spread at 66/19, it’s now declined 41 points to only +6 at 47/41.

It’s concern about whether Thompson is sufficiently conservative that is driving a lot of his problems. 58% of primary voters now say they want someone more conservative than him to be the nominee, compared to only 29% who are content with him. And he’s posting extremely weak numbers with voters identifying as ‘very conservative,’ getting 21% to 28% each for Hovde and Neumann.