To Know Carpetbagger Eric Hovde Is To Dislike Him

Charles Franklin is the director of the Marquette Poll, Wisconsin's gold standard for political polls. Recently, he joined Maggie Daun on her radio talk show to discuss what the latest polls show about the carpetbanker with a pornstache, Eric Hovde.

MD: Is Eric Hovde self imploding as a candidate?

CF: Well, he slipped a little bit, but it is early in the campaign. The big thing is two months ago in April, 56 percent said they didn't know enough to have an opinion. Now that's down to 44 percent. That's the sort of normal progression for a non-incumbent candidate to be getting better known. The trouble for Hovde in this last two months is that his favorable ratings went up by four points, but his unfavorables went up by eight points. And so relatively he's slipping as he's gotten better known.

MD: Yeah, in general, insulting students, people might have a couple of extra pounds on them, old folks - probably not the best play.in the State of Wisconsin.

CF: It still leaves Baldwin up by anywhere from five to seven or even nine points across the different questions we asked. That's not much change from two months ago, but relatively speaking, Hovde's a little less likable than he was.

MD: I'd say he's gosh darn unlikable pretty much all the time on all points.

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