For example, 35% of respondents said race relations is an extremely big problem nationally, while 24% said that’s the case in Wisconsin. Similarly for health care, those percentages were 35% and 25%, respectively.
“This suggests that a national lens on public policy issues like health care, climate change, the budget deficit and government regulation might get folks more engaged and make them more likely to vote,” Yackee said.
About 46% of respondents said climate change was an “extremely big” or “quite” a problem at the state level, while 32% said it was not a problem or a small problem, with 20% somewhere in between. Similarly, a larger share of respondents supported strategies to address climate change but otherwise were largely against government regulation.
The other “extremely big” concerns for Wisconsinites at the national level are the budget deficit, wealth distribution and race relations. At the state level, too much government regulation was a top concern rather than the budget deficit as one of the five most important issues.
Notably, 10.3% of respondents said the state budget deficit is an extremely big problem, 22.5% said it is quite a problem, 36.7% said it is somewhat of a problem and 19.5% said it is a small problem. Only 8.6% said it is not a problem. By law, the state can’t run a budget deficit and currently it has the largest surplus in its history.
