21 Comments - Anonymous - Tuesday, Oct 30, 18 @ 9:38 am: It’s like he lost this when he refused to take Jim Edgar seriously. But he got in to this business because he was fed up with others, including Rahm, for caving when he thought they should have pushed harder. He thought he had all the answers, and because he supplied most of his own money, he didn’t have to listen to others. He has gone his own way, and he’ll likely go out on his own, too. - Stones - Tuesday, Oct 30, 18 @ 9:39 am: But he’s been successful at everything he’s ever done (or words to that effect). - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Oct 30, 18 @ 9:40 am: When you’re the most vulnerable, and worst Republican governor, in America, more likely than not… you are failing Politics 101. Rauner failed… including Politics 101 - Texas Red - Tuesday, Oct 30, 18 @ 9:43 am: “For months, Rauner has worked to win back the roughly 300,000 GOP conservatives who voted for his primary challenger, State Rep. Jeannie Ives.” Lip service from Rauner; signing HB-40/PA 100-0538, makes him person persona non grata to conservatives. - Grandson of Man - Tuesday, Oct 30, 18 @ 9:50 am: It’s funny, what just happened, but very tragic and angering as well—Rauner goin’ to the Trump rally to embrace Trump while lookin’ like a pretentious doofus, as the horrible bomb threats and shooting happened. These things are fueled by Trump, and Rauner walked right into them without even so much as meeting with Trump or caring about his political consequences. - Lucky Pierre - Tuesday, Oct 30, 18 @ 9:57 am: And JB is supposed to run to the center as well but he has declined to show any independence from the Machine and Speaker Madigan, so Rauner is winning independents according to an NPR poll “Pritzker has a big advantage in the Chicago area, while Rauner appears to have a slight edge outside of it. 82 percent of Democrats say they are likely to vote in November, a higher percentage than Republicans or independents. The unhappiness with state government shows up in heavy support for legislative term limits, as about 80 percent are in favor. Support is strong among both Democrats and Republicans. Survey results suggest Pritzker is more unifying for Democrats than Rauner is for Republicans. 67 percent of Democrats say they will vote for Pritzker while 23 percent are undecided, 6 percent say they will vote for someone else and 4 percent say they will vote for Rauner. 56 percent of Republicans indicate they would vote for Rauner, while 21 percent are undecided, 17 percent say they plan to vote for someone else, and 7 percent say they will vote for Pritzker. Among independents, Rauner has slightly more support than Pritzker. http://www.nprillinois.org/post/survey-shows-voters-favor-pritzker-governors-race-many-are-still-undecided#stream/0 - wondering - Tuesday, Oct 30, 18 @ 10:00 am: To use Pepys on Dr. Johnson….The amazing thing is not that he needs more support to win, it is that he has any support at all. - A Jack - Tuesday, Oct 30, 18 @ 10:03 am: Perhaps Rauner should take a lesson from the previous number one most disliked governor in America, the governor of Alaska. The Governor of Alaska bowed out of his race a few weeks ago, rather than face an embarrassing defeat. The Governor of Alaska also endorsed one of his former opponents, although I wouldn’t expect Rauner to have the grace to do that. - WOB - Tuesday, Oct 30, 18 @ 10:05 am: The irony is that this may be the best funded GOP Gov campaign in history and simultaneously the worst executed. In the last week the campaign failed to capitalize on multiple internal crises in the J.B. campaign while driving their candidate to southern Illinois for a complete train wreck of a news cycle. And it goes back even further to the complete lack of a messaging arc during the primary to zero oppo flow through the summer in media. No doubt the Gov has created a lot of problems, but doesn’t seem like his team is helping. - Steve Rogers - Tuesday, Oct 30, 18 @ 10:05 am: It’s good to know the governor knows how voting works, since he never really seemed to figure out the whole 60-30 thing very well. - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Oct 30, 18 @ 10:09 am: LP, you do realize you’re quoting a poll taken in July and August right? You do know the election is a week from today, right? - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Oct 30, 18 @ 10:14 am: “Lucky Pierre”… To, indeed, pile on… ===56 percent of Republicans indicate they would vote for Rauner…=== and… ===67 percent of Democrats say they will vote for Pritzker…=== Be it June, August, the second Tuesday of a made up month… an incumbent with 57% of his/her party’s support and the opponent securing 2/3 of their party… Bud, these aren’t good things. Ever. - Arsenal - Tuesday, Oct 30, 18 @ 10:28 am: ==And JB is supposed to run to the center as well== Says who? I hate to be the one to tell you that the parties aren’t perfectly symmetrical, but a Democrat in IL starts out with a thumb on the scale- as the top line numbers of the (very dated) poll you cite shows. According to you, JB hasn’t moved to the center, and independents (who aren’t necessarily centrist, most folks are partisans regardless of what they claim) slightly favor Rauner…but JB is still leading big. In IL, Democrats just simply have more leeway to play to their party base than Republicans do. - Angry Republican - Tuesday, Oct 30, 18 @ 10:34 am: Rauner will be lucky if he even gets 700K votes, and could end up being the biggest loser in the last 50 years. - NeverPoliticallyCorrect - Tuesday, Oct 30, 18 @ 11:16 am: This election for governor can’t be over fast enough. Rauner is just useless and I suspect his numbers will reflect that on election day. - WhoKnew - Tuesday, Oct 30, 18 @ 11:25 am: -Instead, Rauner has done this all backwards.- May he be appropriately rewarded! - VanillaMan - Tuesday, Oct 30, 18 @ 11:36 am: Rauner has been Illinois’ longest serving lame duck - 3 years, 50 weeks. - Blue Dog Dem - Tuesday, Oct 30, 18 @ 11:57 am: Conservatives demand that you at least try to govern from the right on fiscal issues, and occasionally to the right on social issues. This guy did not. The heck with empty promises in the primary or general. - Joe Bidenopolous - Tuesday, Oct 30, 18 @ 11:59 am: ===so Rauner is winning independents according to an NPR poll=== To cherry pick a (way, way) more recent poll (The Simon Poll/SIU - 9/24-29), Pritzker leads 49-27 overall, Pritzker carried 81% of D’s while Rauner had 67% of R’s, and Pritzker led 36-25 among independents. And to add insult to injury, Pritzker led every region except downstate, where they were statistically tied JB 36 - BVR 35. But please, keep on believin’ - you’ll just need a full upgrade and reboot of the bot software on November 7 following the election. https://paulsimoninstitute.siu.edu/_common/documents/opinion-polling/simon-institute-poll/2018/XTABS_Release-1_Election_October18.pdf - Practical Politics - Tuesday, Oct 30, 18 @ 12:26 pm: Rauner took the low road in the primary and now has to live with the results. He ought to have run a positive campaign and buried Ives in commercials, but negative is all that he knows. He failed to unify with the conservatives after the primary and now he is struggling to hold the base days before the election. Pathetic. - Stumpy's bunker - Wednesday, Oct 31, 18 @ 7:51 am: “Jeanne Ives is Madigan’s favorite Republican”. “We need to come together - united”. Voters’ memories may be short, but not that short. Six days left to reinvent this miscalculation. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.