I love trend charts. Topinka probably won’t love this one, though.

The top graphic depicts poll results (dots) and the polling trends (lines) since mid-April. Blagojevich is in blue, Topinka is in red. The graph and the results below it are from Pollster.com. a great new site that has now added an Illinois page.

This is overly simplistic, of course. The race will obviously tighten up when Topinka finally starts running negative TV ads (although her campaign is currently “dark” downstate and hasn’t bought any ads for this weekend in Chicago), and the guv is still far enough below 50 to be troublesome to an incumbent. No matter what any poll says today, the election is not tomorrow.

But, as the title of this post says, the trend ain’t her friend.

[I closed comments on this pretty quickly because it was posted so late in the day. But like all the posts, you can comment all weekend and they will magically appear on Monday morning.]

       

8 Comments - Political Hack - Friday, Sep 15, 06 @ 4:54 pm: Her problem is exactly the chart you posted. The trend is against her in a democratic state. She was served up a gift on a silver platter ($1500 checkgate) and didn’t capitalize. She is not on TV for one reason and one reason only. She doesn’t have the money. And she will never get it after the money guys see this chart. Bye Bye Judy - Boone Logan Square - Friday, Sep 15, 06 @ 5:19 pm: Here is a good open question for the readers, Rich. How can Judy sell herself to the voters of Illinois to get above 43% by election day? - Anonymous - Friday, Sep 15, 06 @ 5:48 pm: I love how all these polls keep coming out and the Topinka spin machine (campaign staff/volunteers) get on here and try to spin it the right way. She is praying for an indictment that is not going to happen. I hear she cant raise ANY money because she is down double digits in every poll. The RNC and the White House have all but about wrote this race off. They came in once and don’t really want to waste their time again. Ok, you can all refute me now. Spin away Topinka lovers… Spin away! - Punley Deiter Finn - Friday, Sep 15, 06 @ 5:49 pm: Wow! Graphic evidence like this is devastating. Rich, I hope your friends at the Sun-Times publish this, along with your trenchant commentary on the reasons for the ever-growing Judy Gap. - Tom - Friday, Sep 15, 06 @ 7:08 pm: I was indifferent between the two until Rod launched his incessant “What’s She Thinking” commercials in February. The commercial with Topinka superimposed over a Bush speech was moronic. I’m going to hold my nose and vote Topinka as the slightly lesser of two evils. Illinois is a solid blue state and will be for at least a generation, so Rod wins rather easily. We’ll have another term of Rod’s creative financing to put Illinois further into a hole. - Lakeview Voter - Saturday, Sep 16, 06 @ 1:59 pm: Trend lines be damned….I’m a life-long Democrat who cannot even imagine voting for Rod. One of the commenters above is probably right: IL is so Blue that Rod will win anyway. But he won’t win with my vote. Judy’ll be the first Republican I ever vote for in my life. She may not be great, but at least she’s *slightly* less corrupt than G-Rod. - Squideshi - Sunday, Sep 17, 06 @ 8:28 pm: pollster.com omitted Rich Whitney. The site can’t be all that accurate if they don’t even know that there are 3 candidates in the race! - Dorian Breuer - Sunday, Sep 17, 06 @ 10:27 pm: Any chance you can start tracking Whitney? Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.