People get tax bills, get happy

Or at least, that's what the poll numbers seem to say. Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle (AKA J-Dizzle, peeps) has seen an utter reversal in the lastest monthly installment of SurveyUSA's tracking poll. Wisconsinites now approve of the Dizzle by a margin of 48%-44%. Here's the pretty picture:



As we noted last month, since SUSA started the poll in May, there has been basically just staistical noise, with J-Dizzle's negatives generally topping his positives but all within a small band of four or five points either way. This is the first time, however, that the positives have been higher, and the only reason I can think why this may be true--it certainly isn't because the Packers are putting us in a good mood--is that Doyle actually did generally hold the line on property taxes. (See Xoff for more on that.)

Again, in the breakout numbers, the Dizzle has room to improve among self-identified "liberals" and "Democrats," as well as lots of ground to gain among "moderates" and "Independents." But what's encouraging is that among those on the left, the numbers are a lot better than they were last month, with only 29% of "liberals" disapproving, and 26% of "Democrats." If those numbers keep going down, with some more spare headway in the middle, then this may not be as close an election as people thought.