Gov. Scott Walker is trailing Hillary Clinton by 10 percentage points in his home state of Wisconsin, a new survey says.
In a hypothetical general election match-up, Clinton leads Walker by a margin of 52 percent to 42 percent, according to a Marquette Law School poll of registered Wisconsin voters released Thursday.
{mosads}While the margin is slightly closer than it was in April, when the same poll gave Clinton a 12-point lead, it calls into question Walker’s ability to put Wisconsin in play for the GOP in 2016. A Republican hasn’t won the state in a presidential election since 1984, when Ronald Reagan cruised to reelection.
Clinton holds a narrower, 5-point lead over former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.) in Wisconsin, a 12-point lead over Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and a 16-point lead over Donald Trump, the poll found.
Like her lead over Walker, Clinton’s polling advantages over Bush and Cruz have shrunk since April. Back then, she led Bush by 11 percentage points and Cruz by 16 percentage points. The April poll didn’t test Trump, who was not yet in the race.
Despite trailing Clinton in a 2016 match-up, 25 percent of Republican voters in Wisconsin want Walker to be their party’s presidential nominee.
Ben Carson came in second, with the support of 13 percent of the state’s Republicans, and Trump finished third with 9 percent.
Cruz notched 8 percent support, while Carly Fiorina and Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) each polled at 7 percent. Bush rounded out the field with 6 percent. No other Republican candidate polled above 4 percent.
On the Democratic side, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has cut Clinton’s lead in Wisconsin to 12 percent, with a margin of 44 percent to 32 percent. Sanders drew a crowd of almost 10,000 people when he held a rally in Wisconsin in July.
Vice President Biden, who continues to weigh a potential bid, polled at 12 percent in the state.
Marquette surveyed 802 Wisconsinites by landline and cellphone from Aug. 13 to 16. The overall sample has a margin of error of 4.3 percent, while the Republican section has a margin of error of 6.6 percent and the Democratic sample has a margin of error of 6.1 percent.