Poll Reveals Possible Democratic Candidate For Governor: Mary Burke

A potential Democratic candidate for governor surfaced today as Republicans filed a complaint over a poll on former Trek executive Mary Burke.

Democrats have been talking up the possibility of a gubernatorial candidate with private-sector experience. Mary Burke would fit that billing: The daughter of Trek’s founder received her MBA from Harvard, and spent years helping run company in Europe. She served briefly as former Governor Jim Doyle’s commerce secretary and is currently on the Madison School Board.

Marquette University pollster Charles Franklin says running a private-sector candidate would be similar to the approach taken by Republicans in the 2010 U.S. Senate race.

Franklin: “There’s a little bit of an irony in that she’s also like Ron Johnson – a business person with a business background…and the ability to self-fund a campaign.”

Burke’s name surfaced in a complaint by the state Republican Party through a sworn affidavit from GOP operative Patrick Hogan. He says a pollster asked his opinions about Burke, including his thoughts on how her business had outsourced jobs and that she spent six figures on her run for school board.

Franklin says in a sense it “ratifies” one of the Democratic Party’s worries.

Franklin: “The Democratic Party has said publicly it’s reluctant to start talking about specific names because it makes those people targets. Here is an example of a possible Democratic name coming up and being targeted.”

The Republican complaint alleged the pollster violated state law by not stating who paid for the survey. That’s tough to prove, but if it were the case then the polling firm and not the party that hired them would be in trouble. The Democratic Party said only that it was “conducting a number of research surveys looking at the strengths of several potential strong challengers to the governor.”