*** UPDATE *** Halvorson responds…
“This poll demonstrates that the race for the Illinois 2nd Congressional District is wide open. Even though almost all of the respondents in the poll know who Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. is, only 35% of them are willing to support his reelection and almost half of the total respondents were undecided.
“I’ve been out talking to residents of the district every day and what I hear most is that they are tired of waiting. Our district needs a strong representative who is going to fight for jobs now. Representative Jackson has had 15 years to get the job done and is vulnerable because he has little results to show to this district.”
[ *** End Of Update *** ]
* Fako & Associates, Inc. has a new poll out…
We conducted these surveys as an internal test, not commissioned by any campaign or third party organization. We chose the 2nd Congressional District to run nearly identical Interactive Voice Recognition and traditional live interviewer surveys because of the unique dynamics of the district. Its population and the state of the race presented numerous beneficial attributes to test the viability of IVR surveying. We will be discussing the advantages and disadvantages we discovered through these two surveys after the Thanksgiving holiday, but for now, we present you some of the results
These two polls only have 301 respondents each, so the MOE is a pretty high +/- 5.65 percent.
* Here are the CD 2 trial heat toplines. The first result in each line is for robocalls, the second number is for live interviewers…
Jackson……………………………. 39%….. 35%
Halvorson…………………………. 22%….. 18%
Undecided/Other/Refused…. 38%….. 47%
No longtime incumbent wants to be under 50 percent. Ever. But that’s still a decent sized cushion.
* Name ID, favorability and Jackson job approval…
Jesse Jackson, Jr.:
Substantive Name ID……….. 95% 93%
Positive…………………………… 38% 44%
Neutral……………………………. 30% 27%
Negative………………………….. 27% 22%
Don’t Know…………………….. 5% 7%
Jesse Jackson, Jr. as Congressman:
Approve………………………….. 41% 56%
Disapprove……………………… 24% 25%
Don’t Know…………………….. 35% 19%
Debbie Halvorson:
Substantive Name ID……….. 58% 54%
Positive…………………………… 26% 25%
Neutral……………………………. 22% 22%
Negative………………………….. 10% 7%
Don’t Know…………………….. 42% 46%
Not hugely great favorability and job approval numbers for Jackson, considering that he’s so well known.
* President Obama’s job approval…
Approve………………………….. 82% 89%
Disapprove……………………… 7% 6%
Don’t Know…………………….. 10% 5%
* That high presidential approval will be key if Fox Chicago’s recent report is accurate…
The woman who vows to unseat Jesse Jackson Junior told FOX Chicago News the South Side congressman is so damaged by scandal not even a Presidential endorsement could save him.
Former Representative Debbie Halvorson (D-Illinois) was reacting to our Tuesday night report. A source close to the President’s re-election campaign told us President Obama would support Jackson in the March 20th primary.
It’s still not clear exactly what the President would do for Rep. Jackson (D-Illinois.) He’s still under investigation by the House Ethics Committee on charges related to Rod Blagojevich’s attempt to sell a U.S. Senate seat.
Halvorson declared, “People are sick and tired of his ethics problems, the fact that he’s never around, that he hasn’t done anything. The people of the Second Congressional District need somebody who can walk and chew gum at the same time, somebody who can actually do several things at once and work to bring jobs and economic development to each individual town in the district.
Discuss.
* Full toplines and crosstabs…
* Summary Topline
* Tables for IVR & Cellular Study
* Tables for Live Landline & Cellular Study
- Boone Logan Square - Monday, Nov 21, 11 @ 1:08 pm:
As you say, a big MoE, but Jackson has to be concerned about both his favorables and the fact that just about as many respondents chose “undecided/no answer” as chose him in the robocalls.
Interesting that Halvorson doesn’t have much of a split between live and robocall responses, but Jackson does.
- Cincinnatus - Monday, Nov 21, 11 @ 1:09 pm:
Interesting results (not Halverson v. Jackson). Are people more willing to be honest with humans or machines?
- wordslinger - Monday, Nov 21, 11 @ 1:36 pm:
Why would Obama want to get involved in that mess? One of the great benefits of being president is having the ability to stay above the fray in primaries.
- Boone Logan Square - Monday, Nov 21, 11 @ 1:39 pm:
The subject of how candid people are with machines vs. humans is (as you can imagine) actively debated in the community of pollsters. See, for example the articles at:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/search/label/robopolls
and the lengthy discussion at:
http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/content/69/5/655.full?ijkey=z5sAQQb5cEln2oB&keytype=ref
- Ambivelent - Monday, Nov 21, 11 @ 1:39 pm:
Big split by race but not by gender. That hurts Halvorson’s shot big time.
- Ambivelent - Monday, Nov 21, 11 @ 1:42 pm:
Boone - note this:
The job performance question in the IVR survey included a prompted undecided response while the live interview survey
had undecided as a voluntary response. This was done as a test to observe any differences between the two techniques.
- Aaron Krager - Monday, Nov 21, 11 @ 2:17 pm:
Why test between the two methods with such a large MOE? If Fako & co. wanted to know better performance or better response rates or etc. then why not test with a larger pool?
- Robert - Monday, Nov 21, 11 @ 2:47 pm:
two reactions:
1) early polls don’t mean much, since there is still time for Halverson’s ads / newspaper endorsements / mailings to have an effect.
2) If Pres Obama does indeed endorse Junior, the ad touting that endorsement would be tough to overcome.
- Robert - Monday, Nov 21, 11 @ 2:48 pm:
==Why would Obama want to get involved in that mess? One of the great benefits of being president is having the ability to stay above the fray in primaries.==
Maybe President Obama owes Junior a favor?
- Nice Kid - Monday, Nov 21, 11 @ 2:53 pm:
The number of undecideds is ginormous.
- Pot calling kettle - Monday, Nov 21, 11 @ 3:02 pm:
“Support” is pretty vague. I wouldn’t be surprised if Obama stays out of it, which the JJJ people might count as “support.”
- Team Sleep - Monday, Nov 21, 11 @ 3:12 pm:
I’ve done enough phone banking and direct political calling to know that half the time an answer of “don’t know” or “unsure” or “undecided” can be completely indecipherable. I’ve typically found it to mean that people either don’t want to talk to those making the calls or they don’t want to provide any info. JJJ has been in Congress long enough that most voters should be aware of him and have at least a shallow (i.e. like or dislike) opinion. I understand the not sure crowd, especially since the primary is 3 1/2 months away.
- District_DEM - Monday, Nov 21, 11 @ 3:13 pm:
Its no surprise that name ID is high for Junior….but I think its a huge WIN for Halvorson that his favorable is less then 40%. To think if that many people know you, and less than half of them think youre doing a good job, says that the change message is still strong in that neck of the wooods
- Skeeter - Monday, Nov 21, 11 @ 5:12 pm:
Walk and chew gum? Is Debbie really calling him stupid?
I have no use for JJJ. I view him as a hack more concerned with himself than anything else. But stupid? No, he’s not stupid and I find the charge slightly offensive.
- Gregor - Monday, Nov 21, 11 @ 6:27 pm:
Come on, the threejay investigation is going to enter a new chapter when the Blago brothers uncork the info they’ve been sitting on, and trips will tank in the polls. Halvorsen just has to not make any glaring mistakes, keep up the pressure, the curiosity, about what’s not yet known, and wait for Junior to self-destruct.
- Six Degrees of Separation - Monday, Nov 21, 11 @ 6:35 pm:
Gregor - it’s all a matter of…
Timing.