Walker Maintains Consistent Lead Over Barrett in Latest Poll

A poll released Wednesday by St. Norbert College and Wisconsin Public Radio indicated Gov. Scott Walker holds a 5-point lead over Democratic challenger Tom Barrett going into the .

In a telephone survey of 406 Wisconsin residents conducted between Thursday and Tuesday, 50 percent of respondents said they would vote for Walker compared to 45 percent for Barrett if the election were held today. Five percent remained undecided.

The true gap between the two candidates could be larger or smaller as survey administers said the results included a 5 percentage point margin of error.

According to the survey, it appears Barrett has picked up votes since the 2010 election, while Walker lost a few. In 2010, 38 percent of survey respondents voted for Barrett, but now 45 percent claim he would get their vote on June 5. Walker, on the other hand, shed 2 percentage points as 52 percent of respondents voted for the governor in 2010.

The margin between Walker and Barrett has remained virtually the same in polls released through the month of May. On May 16, over Barrett in a Marquette University Law School poll of 600 likely voters.

Earlier in the month, a poll released May 10 showed Walker . According a Rasmussen Reports survey of 500 likely voters, Walker would garner 50 percent of the vote to Barrett’s 45 percent, which mirrors the current St. Norbert-WPR poll.

However, an internal poll conducted for Democrats show the race is essentially a dead heat, the Washington Post reported Tuesday. That poll, conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research from May 19 to 21, shows Walker leading  Barrett 50 percent to 47 percent — within the poll’s 4-point margin of error.

In Wednesday's St.Norbert-WPR poll, 49 percent of respondents believe the state is heading in the right direction while 45 percent think otherwise.

However, 59 percent of those surveyed believed public employees should have the right to collectively bargain.