Barnes Leads Wisconsin’s Senate Primary
By Evangel Penumaka
New Data for Progress polling finds Mandela Barnes holds high favorability and a wide lead over other primary candidates in next year’s Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin.
Across the Democratic candidates running for Senate, Barnes holds the strongest favorability and name recognition among likely Democratic primary voters in the state. Voters are favorable towards Barnes by a +53-point margin (62 percent favorable, 9 percent unfavorable). Voters view other candidates favorably; however, a majority of voters indicate they haven’t heard enough of the remaining candidates. Voters find Alex Lasry, for example, favorable by a +22-point margin (30 percent favorable, 8 percent unfavorable), but 62 percent of voters also indicate they haven’t heard enough of the candidate — in comparison to a third who say the same of Barnes.
Next, we find Barnes leads in a primary matchup of the Democratic challengers. Barnes holds the vote choice of a plurality of voters at 39 percent. Alex Lasry comes second with 16 percent of the vote. While about a third of voters (29 percent) remain undecided, Barnes holds a strong position as a frontrunner in the primary.
Evangel Penumaka (@evangelpenumaka) is a senior analyst at Data for Progress.
Methodology and full results