* While I have some quibbles with the way the questions were ordered, Public Policy Polling has a new poll showing Democrat Tammy Duckworth opening up a huge lead on Republican Joe Walsh…

The poll of 500 likely voters was taken October 25-26 for Credo Super PAC, which is working against Walsh. Crosstabs are here. According to the poll, Walsh’s unfavorables are higher among men than women…

* Meanwhile, a press release from the Duckworth campaign has some interesting news…

Congressional Franking rules prohibit 500 or more pieces of mail to be sent at a time by a Member of Congress within 90 days of an election. There have been at least 10 unique glossy-mailers from Congressman Walsh’s Congressional office sent between August 10th and October 10th of this year. Of note is the fact that he is only sending these mailers to his constituents who are eligible to vote in the new 8th Congressional district. Walsh is clearly using taxpayer dollars to target potential voters instead of focusing on constituent services.

* Related…

* Tea Party Polls: Allen West, Joe Walsh Among Incumbents In Trouble, PPP Data Finds

* Iraq Vet Takes On Tea-Party Incumbent In Fiery Illinois House Race

* Duckworth touts shared experience in campaign for 8th

* 8th incumbent Walsh sees himself as ‘average Joe’: His own research, Walsh says, has changed his mind on social issues since his 1996 campaign against 13-term 9th District Democratic incumbent Sidney Yates. In that unsuccessful run, as well as in his 1998 bid for Illinois House, Walsh presented himself as supporting abortion rights, gun control and gay rights and against prayer in public schools. Walsh said he arrived at his “pro-life without exception” stance — even in the cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the mother — after years of thought and research.

* VIDEO: Peter Roskam and Joe Walsh speak to volunteers in Addison Illinois 27 Oct 2012

       

23 Comments - OneMan - Monday, Oct 29, 12 @ 9:38 am: 14% difference, I’ll take the under… - MrJM - Monday, Oct 29, 12 @ 9:45 am: Duckworth pulling away? Or “Walsh falling away?” Seemed like Joe’s many chickens had to come home to roost eventually. – MrJM - The Captain - Monday, Oct 29, 12 @ 9:45 am: Look Joe, there’s no guarantee you’re going to get through this so could we please make the most of these last 8 days. I’m going to need to stock up on a lot of your [let’s call it Walsh-ness]. - Colossus - Monday, Oct 29, 12 @ 9:45 am: Franking: I have yet to recieve a single piece of mail from Aaron Schock that didn’t come the summer before an election. Yet my “double hard R” mother gets mail much more frequently. Is there any tracking system where officials have to notify someone when sending out mail? Seems like it would be relatively simple to collect the size of the mailing, a scan of the copy, and the date it was dropped into USPS and post that online for all incumbents. This is such an easy thing to abuse that some sunlight would do it good. Hell, code it right, this website could practically run itself. - Pot calling kettle - Monday, Oct 29, 12 @ 9:48 am: Imagine how much stuff he would be sending out if he weren’t a fiscal conservative… - anon - Monday, Oct 29, 12 @ 9:51 am: Just going to remind everyone that Roskam was behind 14% at this point against Duckworth, so take this poll with a slight grain of salt. - Rich Miller - Monday, Oct 29, 12 @ 9:53 am: ===Just going to remind everyone that Roskam was behind 14% at this point against Duckworth=== That was a Zogby poll and a clear outlier. The other polls taken around the same time showed a very close race. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/writeup/illinois_6-28.html - Madison - Monday, Oct 29, 12 @ 9:55 am: The number that surprises me is the Walsh unfavorable with men. With the campaign running a fairly mysogynistic (sp?) tone I would expect that would be higher amongst females. - Esquire - Monday, Oct 29, 12 @ 10:13 am: It will be a great help to the Illinois 8th Congressional District to have a brand new US Representative in the minority in 2013. If the pollsters are correct, the Republicans will maintain a majority in the House. President Obama is in trouble across the borders in Wisconsin and Iowa. The Obama team is calling for Illinois volunteers to start working the precincts in the Dairy State. Similar minivan efforts worked wonders in the Wisconsin recall elections. All four of Iowa’s major daily newspapers have endorsed Romney (Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Quad Cities and Sioux Falls). One paper had not endorsed a Republican presidential candidate in the past nine election cycles. - 3rd Generation Chicago Native - Monday, Oct 29, 12 @ 10:14 am: I just saw the ad featuring Walsh’s son, saying how it hurts him and his family getting attacked by Duckworth, then you have a picture of the whole family together, then Walsh saying he approves the ad. - Wensicia - Monday, Oct 29, 12 @ 10:16 am: Walsh is a loud buzz saw everyone, except Tea Party diehards, wants to be silenced. He should have moderated his tone and positions. He’ll lose the seat on his own. - ArchPundit - Monday, Oct 29, 12 @ 10:57 am: This is nearly identical to the Anzalone Liszt Research poll last week so the question comes down to which voter model is more accurate: PPP and Anzalone Liszt or We Ask America. - wordslinger - Monday, Oct 29, 12 @ 11:16 am: How do Tea Party types justify using the Congressional frank, anyway? What’s the rationale for incurring the cost of using the U.S. Postal Service (not one of their favorites, I understand) to distribute unsolicited communications that an intern could post on their website for nothing? - walkinfool - Monday, Oct 29, 12 @ 11:32 am: Question order is clearly biased, and set up to make Walsh’s shortcomings the decision driver at the later question. This is more than a “quibble” with a poll. This example just made me doubt PPP polls in general. However, the order bias is probably not 14%, so Duckworth is probably well ahead. - Dan - Monday, Oct 29, 12 @ 12:02 pm: Arch pundit how about tribune poll? - Dan - Monday, Oct 29, 12 @ 12:08 pm: Rich- Did you notice the tribune poll had Roskam up by 4% in 2006? - Rich Miller - Monday, Oct 29, 12 @ 12:12 pm: ===or We Ask America=== Word on the grapevine is that more recent WAA polling has Duckworth pulling away. - ArchPundit - Monday, Oct 29, 12 @ 12:32 pm: The Trib would be closer to the PPP/AL poll indicating a decent lead. That’s interesting Rich. The convergence only makes the picture less clear for the polling earlier on, but there’s no easy way to determine which was more accurate if they do converge. - dave - Monday, Oct 29, 12 @ 12:38 pm: 5 of the last 6 polls in the 8th have had Duckworth up by at least 9. WAA is the very clear outlier - maybe their turnout model is completely different, and accurate, while the others are all wrong. But this race is looking more and more like a blowout. - J - Monday, Oct 29, 12 @ 1:18 pm: This race in a nutshell: Walsh gets propped up by lots of outside money. Duckworth realizes she’s in a race, and hits Walsh hard. Walsh falls back to where he should be. Basically the big money guys on the right blew a bunch of money in an expensive media market, to protect a very flawed candidate. Duckworth hits back, and we the race essentially resets. This certainly lends some credence to the “stupid donors” hypothesis. - The Captain - Monday, Oct 29, 12 @ 1:25 pm: This article from three days ago seems particularly relevant now, especially this quote: “By all measures, we have been successful in IL-8. We have helped turn this race around and now believe Congressman Walsh is on a winning trajectory,” said Tyler Harber, Now or Never spokesman. - Liandro - Monday, Oct 29, 12 @ 2:12 pm: The franking report, if true as reported (the source is highly biased) is disturbing. If The district is coming home to the D, though, it won’t matter either way. - Sideliner - Monday, Oct 29, 12 @ 8:23 pm: Any old Walsh/Bean polls from around now? Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.