Three recent polls have Wisconsin tilting towards Bush

[WI_DEM]

LA Times, Rasmussen, and GAllup all in the last week and all by about three points. I know Madison is firm. I've been to farmers Market and tons of Kerry buttons and activity at his table. But what is going on? It seems like Wisconsin is the one Gore state which could swing from blue to red. Do you think Russ Feingold's re-election could help bring out the vote for Kerry?

[Frodo]

1. Two comments

1) There are huge difference between the polling firms involved (though I don't take Zogby's number to be very reliable either).

2) People need to stop measuring this election purely by the last one. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people say "Kerry automatically picks up all the Gore states... now he just needs one or two more from Bush). Recent polls have put several states won by Gore into the "close" column (PA for instance looks surprisingly close right now) and plenty of Bush states from 2000 look to be in play.

There were a number of states that Gore won by the tiniest or margins (insert Florida joke here), they are all "in play" this time around too.

[HereSince1628]

2. Well the Bradley Foundation financed PNAC so anything is possible

but I would like to believe that this is simply a matter of polling error...

My sense is that taking the war off the table hurt Kerry here. The economy in Wisconsin has been bad since 1976, and has remained so under Democrats and Republicans so I am not sure it is really a powerful issue here.

With regard to Russ F's election, Russ is one of those senators whose office is ALWAYS to busy to answer email. I've sent him US mule and it has about a 30% response rate (Senssenbrenner's response rate to me is about 90% though usually only GOP talking points). Not good IMHOP, but better than Herb Kohl whose office never responds to anything. I'll vote for Russ F but only because I am only voting for Democratic control of the senate and not a guy interested in or sharing my concerns. I won't contemplate conditions underwhich I would vote for Russ D.

[sybylla]

3. Wow, sorry to hear you had such bad response rates

I've written to both our senators by e-mail and snail mail and gotten responses every time, even on "activist" mail that really didn't call for a response.