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More recent, less janky tracking poll has Irvin leading Bailey 33-21 with the rest far behind and 25 percent unsure

Wednesday, May 4, 2022 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Background is here if you need it. Victory Geek appears to be basically a robocall operation, but Cor Strategies designed this survey. I’d bump this mobile phone number way up for reliability, but whatever. Let’s start with the methodology…

671 responses were gathered by Victory Geek for Cor Strategies from Friday, April 29th, though Monday, May 2nd, with 1/3 of those responses collected live over cell phones. The poll’s margin of error is ±3.78%.

* Polling memo from Cor Strategies…

Last week one of the questions from an internal poll we had conducted for a client got leaked, showing tracking numbers for the Illinois Governor’s race. The problem is this poll was never intended for public consumption—it was a quick and dirty automated tracking poll testing something else entirely. The data gave our client what they needed, but these results never should’ve been taken as an accurate snapshot of the governor’s race.

To say we were horrified to have our name tied to those results as an official public tracking poll would be an understatement, so we commissioned an actual poll that we could release. Here are those results.

Richard Irvin has taken a commanding lead in the Illinois governor’s race, with 33% support. Bailey is still in striking distance at 21%, but quickly running out of time. Sullivan has faded to 10%, and the rest of the candidates are in single digits (Rabine 7%, Solomon 3%, Schimpf 2%). With only 25% of likely Republican primary voters undecided, Irvin’s challengers either need to unite or individually dominate the remainder of this race if they are to have any hope of overcoming his lead.

Irvin’s support is statewide but strongest in the suburbs, where he has lapped the field with 38% of the vote compared to just 13% for Bailey. Meanwhile, Bailey polls significantly better outside the suburbs at 27%, but even there he still trails Irvin who has 31%. Sullivan’s support is fairly consistent throughout the state, while Rabine is significantly stronger in Cook County (14%) and the suburbs (11%) than the rest of Illinois (2%).

An interesting note is Irvin’s attacks on Bailey and Sullivan have increased their negatives but both candidates are still “above water.” In fact, Bailey’s net favorability is the same as Irvin’s (+12%). The key difference is overall name recognition: Irvin has achieved an extremely strong 71% name recognition while Bailey is at a relatively weaker 50%. The difference is glaring in the suburbs, where Irvin’s name recognition is 73% compared to just 38% for Bailey.

These results back up what many of us in the industry have observed:

• Irvin has dominated the space for months and used that to build his lead. If all voters hear is what Irvin is putting in front of them, can you blame them for voting for the one candidate they know?
• Bailey has done very little paid voter outreach to everyday Republicans, focusing almost exclusively on grassroots campaigning. This has given him extremely strong support among politically active conservatives, but he has a math problem because that is a small segment of the overall Republican voter population.
• Sullivan impressed early and earned a surprising level of support, but since has inexplicably been almost radio silent other than his one (excellent) video ad on socials and targeted tv.
• Rabine has built some support in Cook County and the suburbs but is likely fighting for 3rd in the race at this point. Interestingly, you combine his support in Chicagoland with Bailey’s support in the rest of the state and you almost have a candidate who can beat Irvin.

It’s important to point out that Bailey’s supporters are much more active and dedicated than Irvin’s, so he is likely to overperform any poll. The exact impact is dependent on voter turnout, but we’d estimate his overperformance to end up around 3%, though it could be as much as 5-7% if his team’s claims of their success with “silent voters” is to be believed.

So Bailey isn’t out of this race yet. But if he continues to ignore regular Republican voters, especially in Chicagoland, Irvin’s lead will just keep growing.

* Again, 25 percent of Republican primary voters are reported to be undecided statewide…

More crosstabs are here.

Thoughts?

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A very quick look at the abortion issue’s past, present and future in Illinois

Wednesday, May 4, 2022 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Capitol News Illinois…

Abortion prohibitions were common throughout the U.S. until Jan. 22, 1973, when the court, in a 7-2 ruling in Roe v. Wade, declared that access to abortion during the first two trimesters of pregnancy was protected as part of a fundamental right to privacy and that states had only limited authority to regulate the procedure.

For a time after that, Illinois was among a handful of states to enact so-called “trigger laws” that would reinstate the ban on abortion if Roe v. Wade was overturned.

A 1975 “trigger law” remained on the books in Illinois until 2017 when then-Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican, signed House Bill 40 to repeal the trigger law and allow abortions to be covered under the state’s medical assistance program and the state employee’s health insurance system.

Prior to that law, Illinois had only covered abortion services in cases of rape or incest, or when there was a threat to the life or health of the mother. The new law, however, extended that to anyone who was covered by the state’s Medicaid program.

But because federal Medicaid rules do not allow public funding of abortion, the services in Illinois are paid for entirely with state funds.

* Sun-Times…

An April 2021 survey by Public Policy Polling concluded 73% of respondents agreed abortion “should remain legal in Illinois as a private decision between a woman and her doctor, not politicians.”

* Belleville News-Democrat…

As an accessible region to conservative Midwest and southern states, the metro-east is at the center of the preparation for more patients to seek care in Illinois. If Roe is reversed, Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis region expects upwards of 14,000 patients from Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma and Tennessee, to travel to southern Illinois for abortions. The organization’s analysis estimates all the states bordering Illinois would move quickly to ban it. Two metro-east clinics that offer abortions announced in January a service to help pay travel costs for out-of-state patients coming to Illinois. Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region, which has a clinic in Fairview Heights, and the Hope Clinic for Women in Granite City will operate the Regional Logistics Center located in the Planned Parenthood’s center in Fairview Heights.

The logistics center is being billed as a “travel agency,” where women can get assistance in arranging and funding travel to the metro-east. This help includes covering the cost of plane tickets and lodging. There are no income limits for participants. Yamelsie Rodríguez, president and CEO, Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, said the draft “previews what we’ve long been preparing for.” She said patients should continue to go to their appointments.

“We knew this opinion was coming and while it’s not official, it brings us one step closer to an impending public health crisis,” Rodríguez said. “Abortion remains legal today. No matter what, with our partners, we will fight for what little is left of abortion access in Missouri and push forward to expand in Illinois where abortion access is protected beyond Roe.”

* Sun-Times…

The Illinois Department of Public Health reported 7,534 nonresidents received abortions in Illinois in 2019, compared with 5,529 in 2017 and 2,970 in 2014.

* Tribune…

[Planned Parenthood of Illinois President and CEO Jennifer Welch] predicted that anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 additional patients could travel to Illinois each year to terminate a pregnancy if abortion rights are overturned.

This is on top of the ever-increasing number of patients who already cross state lines to come here for the procedure. Nearly 10,000 people came from out of state to have an abortion in Illinois in 2020, according to the latest data available from the Illinois Department of Public Health. This was a 29% increase over the previous year, when about 7,500 patients traveled here for the procedure from another state.

The number of abortions here for out-of-state women has risen every year since 2014, according to state health data.

While the news of Roe’s potential demise was shocking, Welch said her agency has been preparing for this possibility for the past five years by increasing the number of health centers, expanding access at facilities, creating a new telehealth program and launching the biggest fundraising campaign in the agency’s history. […]

In 2018, the [Chicago Abortion Fund,] provided funds for roughly 180 people seeking an abortion; in 2022, more than 500 people on average are calling for financial assistance each month, she said.

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