A new Marquette Law School Poll finds 80% of Wisconsin adults say the legislature should have passed a proposed bill using the projected state budget surplus to reduce property taxes, increase special education funding, and provide rebates to taxpayers. Eleven percent say the legislature should have defeated the bill, and 9% don’t know whether the bill should have passed or not.

In a rare level of agreement across party lines, 77% of Republicans, 81% of independents, and 82% of Democrats in the poll say the legislature should have passed the surplus bill.

The Marquette Law School Poll is the most extensive statewide polling project in Wisconsin
history. The survey was conducted May 20-21, 2026, interviewing 454 Wisconsin adults,
with a margin of error of +/-5.5 percentage points. For registered voters the sample size is
429 with a margin of error of +/-5.6 percentage points.

The survey was conducted with a sample selected from the SSRS Opinion Panel, a sample
drawn from postal addresses across the state and invited to take part in surveys online.
The interview was conducted online with all respondents.