Walker Drops To 5th In Iowa In Latest Monmouth Poll

Governor Had Been Leading GOP Pool In The Early Primary State A Month Ago

By
Shawn Johnson/WPR

A new poll suggests Gov. Scott Walker’s support in the early presidential state of Iowa has plummeted as likely Republican voters flock to candidates who have never held office.

In the latest Monmouth University poll of likely Republican caucus-goers, 7 percent said they’d support Walker, placing him fifth out of 17 candidates. Just a month ago, Walker was alone in first.

Surging to the top of the survey were Donald Trump and neurosurgeon Ben Carson, with 23 percent each. A Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics poll released over the weekend reached similar results.

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Monmouth pollster Patrick Murray said Walker is selling himself as a governor who shook things up and got things done. However, he said voters may not want that this election cycle.

“What they’re really looking at is, ‘Well, why do we need somebody who’s inside government claiming they’re going to shake things up, when we’ve got people outside of government who we know will shake things up because they haven’t been tainted by government?’ And it just has pushed Scott Walker to the side,” said Murray.

The Monmouth University Polling Institute in New Jersey conducted the telephone survey of 405 Iowa voters between Thursday and Sunday. The margin of error was plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.