WASHINGTON — It's no surprise that President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are neck and neck in Wisconsin.
“It's really close. It's a jump ball. That's the conclusion I came to,” Ken Goldstein, senior vice president for research and institutional policy at the Association of American Universities, said with a laugh.
Marquette Law School polls have consistently shown it to be a close race in Wisconsin.
But Goldstein, the pollster, cautions about how other polls portray young voters. He criticizes polls that lump together 18- to 39-year-olds, arguing that's too broad a range to represent one perspective. He also cautions that the spotlight on young people protesting Biden's handling of the Gaza war makes them seem like they make up a large portion of the electorate. The Association of American Universities obtained its own data by sending text messages to 18- to 29-year-olds.
“We think that's the best way to get a representative group of young people,” he said. “We're showing Biden winning by 9 percentage points.”
With the election likely to be contested across Wisconsin, Goldstein joined Jeff Meyers, president of the political news aggregator site Wispolitics.com, to discuss just how influential the Badger State could be.
“What are the demographics that make this country a mirror of other countries?” Meyers asked Goldstein during the debate.
“It's not because Wisconsin is like the United States, right? It's not like the demographics of the United States are exactly the same as the demographics of Wisconsin,” Goldstein said. “That's not what makes it special. It's special because it's close. That's all.”
Another close race? The race for a Wisconsin state senate seat. Incumbent Democrat Tammy Baldwin is being challenged by Republican businessman Eric Hovde. A recent Marquette University poll showed Baldwin leading Hovde by just 5 percentage points, 52-47, among registered voters. That didn't surprise Goldstein.
“I don't think there's a world in which someone is going to beat Wisconsin by double digits,” he told Spectrum News.
Goldstein added that if either Biden or Trump performed poorly in the debates, it could affect their chances of winning the presidency. He also said a third-party candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., would hurt Trump and help Biden because people who want to cast anti-Biden votes could vote for him instead of Trump.
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