Monthly Archives: February 2011

A neener nanner via Taegan:

A new Public Policy Polling survey finds that if Wisconsin voters could do it over today they’d support Tom Barrett (D) over Gov. Scott Walker (R) by a seven point margin, 52% to 45%.

Key finding: “The difference between how folks would vote now and how they voted in November can almost all be attributed to shifts within union households. Voters who are not part of union households have barely shifted at all- they report having voted for Walker by 7 points last fall and they still say they would vote for Walker by a 4 point margin. But in households where there is a union member voters now say they’d go for Barrett by a 31 point margin, up quite a bit from the 14 point advantage they report having given him in November.”

I just got this New York Times email alert:

As labor battles erupt in state capitals around the nation, a majority of Americans say they oppose efforts to weaken the collective bargaining rights of public employee unions and are also against cutting the pay or benefits of public workers to reduce state budget deficits, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

However, and as you know, there’s always a however, labor unions are still not popular.

Americans oppose weakening the bargaining rights of public employee unions by a margin of nearly two to one: 60 percent to 33 percent. While a slim majority of Republicans favored taking away some bargaining rights, they were outnumbered by large majorities of Democrats and independents who said they opposed weakening them. Those surveyed said they opposed, 56 percent to 37 percent, cutting the pay or benefits of public employees to reduce deficits, breaking down along similar party lines. A majority of respondents who have no union members living in their households opposed both cuts in pay or benefits and taking away the collective bargaining rights of public employees.

I’m sure Scott Walker will ignore this. Or maybe he can call Fake (or real) David Koch and figure out a way around public opinion.

Much more here.