This post originally appeared at https://reforminggovernment.org/irg-poll-shows-kinser-has-opportunity-to-remake-education-in-wisconsin/
Delafield, Wis. – The Institute for Reforming Government (IRG) is continuing its public polling project with Napolitan and Scott Rasmussen in 2025, conducting a poll on issues related to K-12 Education and the Department of Public Instruction. In its latest poll, Brittany Kinser has an edge in the 2025 race for Superintendent of Public Instruction.
IRG’s Latest Findings:
What Voters Want:
- Brittany Kinser has a slight edge on Jill Underly, with 22% of voters polled saying they will vote for Kinser, 20% for Jill Underly, and 58% undecided.
- When told that Brittany Kinser supports school choice, Kinser’s lead rises to 30 points (56% for Kinser to 26% for Underly).
- Half of voters say that Wisconsin’s K-12 Schools are headed in the wrong direction, with only 28% saying they are heading in the right direction.
- 65% favor allowing state funds to follow a student to the public, private, or charter school of his or her choice.
Key Issues:
- 54% of voters say that they would not be willing to pay more in taxes to increase school funding (31%) or that schools receive enough funding already (23%).
- Given multiple reform options, nearly half (46%) of voters say that the Milwaukee Public School district should be dissolved and broken into several smaller districts with new elected leadership in order to improve those schools.
- Two thirds (67%) say that raising the academic quality of schools should be the focus of the next Superintendent of Public Instruction.
- By a four-to-one margin (72% to 18%), voters say that public schools should not allow biological males who identify as female to play on girls’ sports teams and use girls’ locker rooms, showers, and bathrooms.
- By a two-to-one margin (67% to 32%), voters say that being prepared for college or the workforce is a better measure of student achievement than having grade-level skills.
Supreme Court Race:
- When told that Crawford is the liberal candidate and Schimel is the conservative 44% of polled voters said they will vote for Crawford, and 40% for Schimel.
This survey of 800 Registered Voters was conducted online by Scott Rasmussen on February 25-28, 2025. Field work for the survey was conducted by RMG Research, Inc. Certain quotas were applied, and the sample was lightly weighted by geography, gender, age, race, education, internet usage, and political party to reasonably reflect the population of Registered Voters. Other variables were reviewed to ensure that the final sample is representative of that population. The margin of sampling error for the full sample is +/- 3.5 percentage points.