Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has widened her lead over GOP opponent Donald Trump among Wisconsin voters, according to a Marquette University Law School poll out Wednesday.
Notably, some 40 percent of responses were collected after news broke Friday evening of a 2005 video that captured Trump making lewd comments about women and boasting about grabbing their genitals.
Among self-identified likely voters interviewed between Thursday and Sunday, Clinton leads Trump 44 percent to 37 percent in a four-way race that also includes Libertarian Gary Johnson, 9 percent, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, 3 percent. That’s up from a September Marquette poll where Clinton led Trump 41 to 38.
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Marquette pollster Charles Franklin said that as the survey continued into the weekend, Trump’s numbers took a big slide, especially among women and evangelical Protestants.
“Does that mean that these differences will persist? We have no way of knowing,” Franklin said, but added, “Usually, really big changes kind of come back some.”
Responses from Thursday showed the race in a statistical dead heat but people interviewed Saturday and Sunday preferred Clinton by 19 percentage points.
U.S. Senate Race Still Tight
In the race for Wisconsin’s U.S. Senate seat between GOP incumbent Ron Johnson and Democrat Russ Feingold, things remain close. Feingold continues to lead 46 to 44, but that 2-point gap is down from 5 points in September.
Johnson has yet to lead in a Marquette poll this election cycle.
Franklin said Johnson may be gaining on Feingold because GOP voters are rallying around the incumbent. He also pointed to TV ads from the Johnson campaign that try to show he cares about more people.
“Some shifts in the ‘cares about you’ measure which Feingold still has an advantage of but Johnson has closed that,” Franklin said. “Essential equality between the two on honesty and finally both of them are getting a little bit better known, but Johnson seems to have improved his favorability a little more in these last three weeks.”
Feingold says he remains the only candidate who fights for Wisconsin’s middle class and working families.
The poll included 1,000 registered voters, with 878 self-identified as likely voters. The overall margin of error is +/- 3.7 percent and +/- 3.9 percent among likely voters.
Chuck Quirmbach contributed reporting to this story.
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