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Two years ago next month I wrote a blog post entitled “An Ode to Reliable Polling.” In it, I joined Democratic consultant Bill Christofferson and UW Political Science professor Charles Franklin in lamenting the lack of a serious statewide media poll. As Prof. Franklin said at the time, “No Milwaukee or Green Bay or Madison news organization currently sponsors regular, professional and high quality readings of public opinion. Not, perhaps, the best state of affairs for journalism in Wisconsin.” Mr Christofferson noted simply, “Unlike some other states, Wisconsin does not have a history of a reliable statewide media poll…”

Well, glory and hallelujah, it appears the dark ages have come to a close. Wispolitics.com, Wisconsin’s premier news service for people interested in state government, has teamed up with a pair of profs at UW-Madison to sponsor a poll.

According to the release announcing the results:

This is the first in a series of at least three UW Dept. of Political Science/WisPolitics.com polls this general election season.
“WisPolitics.com is a believer in emphasizing good polling, and we’re confident Professors Goldstein and Franklin will provide top-notch survey work to help us better understand the dynamics of this historic election,’’ said Jeff Mayers, president of WisPolitics.com.

The poll surveyed 506 likely voters June 8-10, with a margin of error of +/- 4.5%.

There’s a lot of polling out there these days. Quinnipac released a poll today of 1,537 likely WI voters. A mid-June poll of 538 likely WI voters from SurveyUSA is also floating around. And those are just the public polls - certainly McCain and Obama are polling, as well as a few outside interests as well I’m sure, like AFL-CIO and SEIU. It’s nice to know amidst all that that Wispolitics/UW will be providing accurate, timely, and reliable numbers for Wisconsin’s public policy community. Way to go!

And yes, I acknowledge that all three recent polls have Obama leading McCain in Wisconsin. It looks like Obama’s pretty steady at 52 - I’m confident John McCain will make a good fight at whittling away three points.

• Remember when he was lampooned? - September 4th, 2008
• The Media has it both ways - September 3rd, 2008
• New MULS Law faculty blog - September 2nd, 2008
• Concluding Convention Thoughts - September 1st, 2008
• Another Nixon Observation - August 30th, 2008