Last July, I wrote a post for the Marquette Law School Faculty Blog that was premised on The Promise. The one Scott Walker made when he ran for governor four years ago. Walker pledged that at least 250,000 jobs would be created in Wisconsin during his first term in office. The thrust of the blog post was to look at whether that promise could come back to haunt the Governor in a reelection campaign. You can find my earlier thoughts here.

We won’t know for sure what role The Promise will have played in this year’s race until Election Day, but there are early indications that it may not be the all-powerful political weapon Democrats had hoped for.

That’s not to say job creation isn’t a potential problem for the governor. Wisconsin, according to the most reliable jobs numbers, has lagged behind the national average during Walker’s tenure. The latest tally of “jobs added” shows Wisconsin ranks 37th in private-sector jobs created. With roughly a year left in office, the governor is only 42 percent of the way to his promise of 250,000.

It is still a bit over nine months until Wisconsin’s election for governor in November and the major parts of the campaigns, especially the expected heavy rounds of television advertising, are far from beginning. So Professor Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll, cautioned against reading too much into the first round of polling in 2014 as results were released Monday.

That said, the results attracted attention in political and news circles across Wisconsin and beyond when they showed Gov. Scott Walker, the Republican incumbent, had a six percentage point lead over Mary Burke, the only major Democratic challenger. In late October, the Law School poll found Walker was leading Burke by two percentage points.

Franklin noted that in both polls, Walker was the choice of 47% of those polled. However, in October, Burke got support from 45% and in the new results, based on polling from Jan. 20 to 23, she came in at 41%.