MILWAUKEE — As the early presidential primary polls pile up, some patterns are emerging for Scott Walker.
One, he’s consistently placing in the top tier of GOP candidates in most states.
Two, he is doing much better with conservative GOP voters than with moderate ones.
And three, he is doing better than anyone else with the most conservative voters.
All these trends come with big caveats. Presidential primary voters are still learning about the potential 2016 field. Most don’t have strong preferences at this point, almost a year before the first caucus or primary, and about six months before the first Republican debate. The horse race numbers will bounce around a lot over the coming months.
But taken together, these surveys do give us a sense of how the GOP hopefuls are perceived within their party at the front end of the campaign.
In Walker’s case, the big takeaway is his emerging strength with the party’s conservative base.
In polls released last weekend by NBC and Marist, Walker led the field among conservative Republicans in the three most important early states — Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
But he ran much further back in the pack among moderate Republicans, trailing Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Rand Paul and others.
A new national poll of GOP voters by CBS shows a similar pattern. Asked about all the candidates they would “consider” voting for, 30 percent said Walker, which put him behind five other Republicans (reflecting in part his lower name recognition). But among “very conservative” Republicans and independents, 50 percent said they would consider voting for Walker, tops in the field.
Some insiders think Walker’s best route to the nomination is to position himself as the leading conservative alternative to Bush, who is doing much better right now with moderates than conservatives. These polls suggest the Wisconsin governor has a shot at doing that.
In the Iowa and New Hampshire polls, Walker led among tea party supporters, and in all three states, he was competitive with evangelical voters.
In a different survey of South Carolina Republicans by Public Policy Polling, Walker led among “very conservative” voters, tea party supporters, and voters who don’t believe in evolution.
Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and — interestingly — Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul-are doing better with moderate voters within the GOP than conservative ones in these recent state polls. Walker, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson and Ted Cruz are doing better with conservatives than moderates.
Walker continues to get low “negatives” from Republican voters.
That suggests that while he is much stronger with conservatives, he isn’t alienating too many moderates at this point, which would be a great recipe for going far in the primaries if he can pull it off.
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