Walker is a typical Right Winger in demographics; he polls well with upper income caucasian men, married women and those without a college education. That demographic group gives him a slight edge over Barrett, unless there is a large turnout including minority voters.
The Marquette polling also sheds some light on how attitudes toward Walker vary geographically.
Using the state's media markets as a measure, the governor is running above his statewide approval rating (49 percent) in three regions: the Green Bay market, where his approval is 56 percent; the state's northern TV markets (combining Wausau with two Minnesota markets that reach into Wisconsin, Duluth and the Twin Cities), where his approval is 58 percent; and the portion of the 10-county Milwaukee TV market outside the city of Milwaukee, where his approval rating is 57 percent.
Walker is far below his statewide approval rating in two places: the state's largest city, Milwaukee, where his approval rating is 30 percent; and the Madison TV market, an 11-county area where his approval rating is 37 percent.
Walker is right around his statewide number in the La Crosse/Eau Claire market.
In most of these places, Walker's 2012 approval rating is a few points below the percentage of the vote he got in the same areas in 2010. The one exception to that is northern Wisconsin. In the three northern TV markets combined (Wausau, Twin Cities and Duluth), Walker's 2012 approval rating of 58 percent is several points higher than his 2010 vote in the same region of the state, 54 percent. That suggests northern Wisconsin could be a stronghold for Walker on Tuesday.
Otherwise, Walker's standing in the 2012 polling reflects the present-day geography of Wisconsin politics, with Democrats strong in Milwaukee, Madison and the southwest, and Republicans strong on the periphery of Milwaukee County, much of the Fox Valley and along the Lake Michigan shoreline.
