* As I told subscribers this morning, be careful when you read the media coverage of these poll results…
The 2014 governor’s race in Illinois could be anybody’s game, according to the results of a new poll conducted by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at SIU Carbondale.
A statewide survey of 600 registered voters from Jan. 27 to Feb. 8 shows Democrats leaning toward Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan in a hypothetical primary race with Gov. Pat Quinn and former White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley. Republicans, meanwhile, are more undecided, with Illinois Treasurer Dan Rutherford taking a slight lead over other possible contenders, such as state Sen. Bill Brady, R-Bloomington, and U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock, a Republican representing the state’s 18th congressional district.
Institute director David Yepsen said the poll, which has 4 percent margin of error, is a good snapshot of the potential races that will be heating up later this year.
The overall poll has a 4 percent margin of error. But the Democratic and Republican primary head-to-heads have much higher MoE’s. From the pollster…
The Democratic subsample of 310 respondents has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.5 percentage points, and the Republican subsample of 186 respondents has a margin of error of 7.2 percentage points.
That GOP subsample is awfully darned tiny.
* Keeping that in mind, this is from NBC5…
Of Republicans, 53.2 percent said they are undecided, 10.2 percent like State Treasurer Dan Rutherford, and 9.7 would vote for Senator Bill Brady. Congressman Aaron Schock won 9.1 percent while former Congressman Joe Walsh got 5.9 percent and state Senator Kirk Dillard 3.2 percent.
Among Democrats, 31.9 percent would vote for Madigan while 22.9 percent would vote again for Quinn and 11.9 would pick Daley. Even in this camp 28.4 percent was undecided.
Republican Bruce Rauner’s name was tested, but nobody picked him. That’ll change with $50 million, however.
* Sun-Times…
Those polled gave Quinn poor remarks for the work he has done, with only 32.8 percent giving the governor positive job-performance ratings. The poll showed 51.3 percent disapproving of the governor’s job performance.
Those findings represent a sizable slide for Quinn since the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute’s polling unit last was in the field. Last summer, 42.2 percent of those surveyed carried a positive view of the governor’s job performance while 49 percent disapproved.
That question was asked of the entire universe, so it’s far more valid. But last year’s poll on Quinn’s job performance was somewhat of an outlier, since most other polls have shown far worse job performance numbers.
* Related…
* Rutherford points to office savings
* Union targets Quinn — again
* Schools facing another year of deep funding cuts
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- walkinfool - Wednesday, Feb 13, 13 @ 10:07 am:
Quinn made fixing the pension problem “the reason he was put on Earth”, presumably as Governor.
And he has sacrificed his support from Labor to get it.
As long as there is no apparent solution, he has cooked his own goose. If there is something done on pensions quickly, his image might improve substantially.
- shore - Wednesday, Feb 13, 13 @ 10:19 am:
schock was on the railing getting a lot of facetime last night at state of the union while roskam made faces sitting next to paul ryan up in the gop nosebleed. I don’t think rauner’s $50 million will sell him, but I hope all of them run and there are 2,000 debates because the party really has no idea right now where its head is at.
- Dazed & Confused - Wednesday, Feb 13, 13 @ 10:48 am:
186 respondents wouldn’t suffice in a state rep race, let alone a statewide poll. Its somewhat embarrassing for the Paul Simon Institute to put out such small numbers for both sides after 10 days of polling.
- Chicago Cynic - Wednesday, Feb 13, 13 @ 11:27 am:
This confirms my very strong belief that there is no yearning for a Daley and if he runs, he will be quickly relegated to third place. I’d ignore the R results for the reasons Rich has already written about.
Frankly it’s pretty ridiculous that they couldn’t oversample R’s to get a statistically relevant sample size. Do it right or don’t do it at all.
- langhorne - Wednesday, Feb 13, 13 @ 11:32 am:
any poll from now til quinn is defeated in the primary will have a heavy ABQ factor–anybody but quinn.
so if the repub subsample was 186, rutherford and brady got about 18 mentions each, 17 for schock, 11 for walsh and 6 for dillard.
- no more - Wednesday, Feb 13, 13 @ 12:27 pm:
The SIU poll is a joke, a 186 respondants.The only real poll taken by reputable PPP had Dillard blowing away Quinn more than other GOPers and Dillard even beat Bill Daley. Schock trailed Quinn.Dillard would get 15-20% just because of DuPage County’s share of Republican Primary historical totals if he is not one if 5 people from his own county this time!
- Charlie Leonard - Wednesday, Feb 13, 13 @ 12:39 pm:
The Simon poll is a policy-related poll with an election question thrown in, just because we think it is interesting. It is not and does not purport to be an election question. Rich knows that, which is why he didn’t criticize the poll for it.
We are always modest about our results and put our margins for error for the subsamples right up front.
Data on the policy questions will be coming out in the next few days. Six hundred interviews is a perfectly respectable sample size.
If people knew how expensive professional phone surveying was, they’d know why we didn’t oversample Republicans.
- Charlie Leonard - Wednesday, Feb 13, 13 @ 12:45 pm:
Sorry. “…does not purport to be an election POLL.”
- Boone Logan Square - Wednesday, Feb 13, 13 @ 12:59 pm:
Thanks for the poll and for checking in, Charlie.
==”If people knew how expensive professional phone surveying was, they’d know why we didn’t oversample Republicans.”==
Heh. This would be much more effective evidence for ousting Pat Brady than what Oberweis is trying…
- Votecounter - Wednesday, Feb 13, 13 @ 1:29 pm:
Then why do it? For the headlines? This just makes it so people who understand polling won’t give the next one a second look.
- Dazed & Confused - Wednesday, Feb 13, 13 @ 2:23 pm:
Charlie - as someone with some polling experience, 600 respondents would be an average sample for a general election question. When you break it down and only get 186 for a statewide GOP primary, it is abysmal (Rich said awfully darned tiny). Perhaps you shouldn’t include the election question for interest because its somewhat tainted. Or use an implicit warning to the press that this is not an election question.
If you break down the GOP vote into very broad regions, its essentially 20 percent Cook, 35 percent collars and 45 percent downstate. So I assume this poll had roughly 40 respondents in Cook, 70 in the collars and 90 downstate.
- Just The Way It Is One - Wednesday, Feb 13, 13 @ 3:44 pm:
These Subsamples are small and both D an R results have an awfully big MoE–yet, if anything, from PQ’s perspective, it could perhaps be seen as mildly hopeful, if it’s ACtually more like 29-26, though he’s clearly behind. On the GOP side, whoa, there’s a LONG way to go b4 THAT guy is picked–might even be a Cliffhanger, like last time, ‘cuz, again, if anything, there’s clearly no “Front” runner…
- VanillaMan - Wednesday, Feb 13, 13 @ 7:03 pm:
Some folks are so addicted to political nonsense they have completely forgotten what the last gubernaorial polls in 2010 predicted.
Really folks? You gonna believe polls after the last election?
- Cincinnatus - Thursday, Feb 14, 13 @ 12:39 am:
16 respondents separate high and low Republican candidate. About 90 respondents choose a candidate. 102 Illinois Counties.
Utter nonsense.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Thursday, Feb 14, 13 @ 9:13 am:
Charlie -
I’m not going to besmirch your poll. I find it useful.
That said, when it comes to public policy, I find NIU’s annual public policy poll more helpful.
For one thing, they’ve been asking a pretty consistent set of core questions the same way since 1984, with some slight expansions as the public policy debate expands. That gives us really good information about changes in public attitudes.
Secondly, their sample size is over 1,100, which adds some reliability.
Finally, they publish a voluminous amount of crosstab data, much more so than the Simon Institute.
I rely on both polls, but lean more heavily on NIU for these reasons. Folks can find it here.