With less than one month until the election, incumbent Gov. Scott McCallum still lags behind state Attorney General Jim Doyle, according to a new poll.
The poll shows Doyle leading McCallum with 44 percent of respondents saying they would vote for Doyle if the election were today. Thirty-seven percent said they would vote for McCallum, with 10 percent undecided and 6 and 3 percent favor Libertarian Ed Thompson and Green Party candidate Jim Young, respectively.
\With four weeks to go, Jim Doyle is in a stronger position than any other challenger in the country,"" Doyle spokesman Bill Christofferson said in a statement.
Yet McCallum representative Debbie Monterrey-Millet said her camp feels positive about the poll.
""It shows the race is a virtual dead heat,"" she said.
This is the latest of several polls that place Doyle in the lead, but it differs from previous polls in that the percentage of undecided voters is much smaller, according to UW-Madison political science Professor David Canon.
""Seven percent with 10 percent undecided is a lot bigger a lead than 7 percent with 18 to 19 percent undecided,"" he said.
UW-Madison political science Professor Dennis Dresang speculated that the results were ""very disappointing for McCallum supporters.""
As long as poll respondents actually vote, Dresang said, Doyle's lead would be hard to beat.
""McCallum has a higher negative image than positive image. It will be tough to turn around that image'anything short of massive brain surgery [won't work],"" he said.
Canon, however, said he would not count McCallum out yet. McCallum could possibly gain ground if he presented a more comprehensive budget plan, since fixing the budget deficit plays a vital role in voter's decisions, he said.
Both professors said the support Doyle has nabbed from independent voters would significantly help him. Fourteen percent of Republican respondents and 41 percent of independents chose Doyle over any other candidate.
Although McCallum's fate looks bleak, Dresang said, he still has a chance to win if Doyle supporters do not turn out at the polls Nov. 5.
""We'll be lucky if 40 percent of eligible voters vote,"" he said.
The poll surveyed 600 randomly selected likely voters Oct. 4 through Oct. 7. It was commissioned by the independent group We the People, a coalition of several media organizations in Wisconsin, and conducted by Rockville, Wis.-based Research 2000. The margin of error was 4 percent.
