The big question now is how many votes Rich Whitney gets.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich maintained a sizable advantage over Republican Judy Baar Topinka even as new corruption allegations surfaced involving his close supporters, a new Tribune/WGN-Ch. 9 poll shows.
A week before the election, the survey of 600 likely voters shows Blagojevich backed by 44 percent, Topinka supported by 29 percent and Green Party candidate Richard Whitney with 13 percent. Another 13 percent were undecided in the survey, conducted Friday through Sunday, which has an error margin of 4 percentage points. […]
The poll also found that in the race to replace Topinka in the treasurer’s office, Chicago banker Alexi Giannoulias, a Democrat, has the support of 40 percent of voters compared to 23 percent for Republican state Sen. Christine Radogno of Lemont. Green Party candidate Dan Rodriguez Schlorff got 5 percent.
But nearly 30 percent of voters were undecided in the treasurer contest and large numbers had never heard of either major party candidate, despite a series of stories about questionable loans given by the Giannoulias family’s Broadway Bank, the survey showed.
Two different media companies, two different Cook County Board president polls, two widely different results. The reason? Most likely it’s because the Tribune poll is recent and has a reasonable sample size, while the Daily Herald/ABC7 poll is ancient and has a tiny sample size.
First, the Tribune poll of 484 likely voters conducted Thursday through Sunday:
Stroger leads Peraica 48 percent to 33 percent with 17 percent of voters undecided—a significant gain for the Democrat since a similar poll about three weeks ago showed the contest a virtual tie.
While Stroger has surged, Peraica’s support has slipped among voter groups who are key to his chances, according to the poll of 484 likely voters conducted Thursday through Sunday. The poll has an error margin of 5 percentage points.
The new poll shows Todd Stroger increasing his advantage among city voters beyond what had already been a significant margin. The survey found 62 percent of city voters back Stroger, compared to 50 percent almost two weeks ago. At the same time, Peraica’s support in the city was essentially unchanged at 24 percent. […]
The survey found 63 percent of Democrats now say they support Stroger, up from 59 percent in the previous poll. Stroger’s support among African-American voters increased by 4 percentage points, to 79 percent.
Peraica’s edge among suburban Cook County voters has slipped to 44 percent from 48 percent, while Stroger’s suburban support rose to 32 percent from 28 percent.
Meanwhile, the latest Daily Herald/ABC poll is of just 300 voters taken Oct. 16 to 22, meaning the margin of error is plus-or-minus 6 percentage points and some results are more than two weeks old. So, the poll doesn’t take into account many of the ads that have been aired by Stroger or much of the field work by the Democratic machine.
Even though many don’t know him, Republican board member Tony Peraica led Democratic pinch hitter Todd Stroger by 9 percentage points, 51 percent to 42 percent, the Daily Herald/ABC7 Chicago poll found.
To know Stroger apparently is to not love him, poll results show. Stroger, a Chicago alderman chosen to replace his father on the ballot after the primary, was known to 87 percent of those surveyed, but supported by less than half of them. On the other hand, Peraica was unknown to 42 percent, but still favored by more than half of those polled.
“If people know Stroger and not Peraica, they’ll vote for Peraica,” said Richard Day, whose Evanston-based firm conducted the poll. “It’s remarkable.” […]
Stroger was viewed unfavorably by more than half of those polled, 53 percent, and favorably by 24 percent - a 2-to-1 negative margin. Peraica was thought of unfavorably by 24 percent and favorably by 39 percent, with 42 percent unfamiliar with him.
Constituent Dynamics has released two new polls for the 6th and 8th Congressional Districts.
* Three weeks ago, the polling firm had Peter Roskam slightly ahead of Tammy Duckworth, 47-46. Now, they’ve got Duckworth edging Roskam 48-47. Crosstabs here. Click below for a larger image.
* Two weeks ago, they had Congresswoman Melissa Bean neck and neck with Dave McSweeney, 47-44. Now they’ve got Bean ahead by a more comfortable 50-45.
However - and this is a big however - for the second time in a row the organization has failed to poll the third candidate in the race, rendering this poll useless — The Archpundit has convinced me that the third party candidate is probably picked up in the “other” category. I’d still like to see the candidate in, but the poll is not totally useless. Crosstabs.
If they can’t even figure out that there are three candidates in this race, you gotta wonder whether they can be believed on anything else.
Even more so than with the Daily Herald’s congressional polling, all of these gubernatorial numbers are postively ancient, since the poll was conducted Oct. 16-22, according to the paper. In other words, they sat on these results for eight days and some of the numbers are over two weeks old.
The governor led Topinka by 16 percentage points, 48 percent to 32 percent, in the poll. And in a sign voters view this as the proverbial “None-of-the-Above” election, little-known Green Party candidate Rich Whitney polled 12 percent support, likely an unprecedented showing for a third-party candidate in Illinois. […]
In this campaign, though, women voters backed Blagojevich by a nearly 2-to-1 margin. And the governor led Topinka by 13 percentage points, 45-32 percent, in suburban Cook, and by 12 percentage points, 47-35 percent, in the DuPage, Lake, Kane, McHenry and Will collar counties.
That campaign is working, the poll shows. Asked to rate Topinka on a 1-10 scale, those surveyed rated her a 4.0 - lower than any statewide candidate this fall and even lower than President Bush, who rated a 4.2. Topinka was rated a 5.6 just two years earlier.
Blagojevich’s own rating stood at 4.6, dropping a full point from two years ago, a likely indication the seemingly endless stream of stories about corruption allegations in his administration is taking a toll.
*** UPDATE *** The Tribune/WGN poll isn’t on the Web yet, but I’m told the results are: 44-29-13
For the second time in a row, Constituent Dynamics has released a poll on the 10th CD that doesn’t jibe with any other numbers.
Two weeks ago, they had Congressman Mark Kirk ahead of Dan Seals 46-44. Nobody believed it. They also had Melissa Bean in a tough race and nobody believed that, either, until the Daily Herald poll suggested she was in trouble.
This time, they’ve got Dan Seals ahead of Congressman Mark Kirk 48-46. Gitcher crosstabs here. Click below for a larger image.
*** UPDATE *** I posted this in comments, but thought it should be elevated to the main page. Here is the methodology this outfit uses:
Majority Watch, a project of RT Strategies and Constituent Dynamics, comprises telephone surveys conducted using interactive voice recognition (IVR) technology.
In each of 30 contested congressional districts, a representative sample of 5,000 likely voters based on previous vote history was selected from state voter registration files. 1,200-1,300 interviews were completed in each district […]
Completed interviews were compared to the voter registration file to validate results. Interview were discarded when the surveyed demographic responses did not match the voter file information of the sampled likely voter. In this manner, approximately 1,000 interviews were validated for each district.
Final results were weighted to represent the likely electorate by demographic factors such as age, sex, race and CD geographical subarea. No more than one time in 20 should chance variations in the sample cause the results to vary by more than 3 percentage points from the answers that would be obtained if all voters in a CD were polled.
[Updated from last night and bumped up. Also, FYI, the Daily Herald will be releasing a new poll on the governor’s race at about six o’clock tonight. A new poll for the county board president’s race will be released at 10 pm. Check back for links if you can.]
One brief bit of caution: Some of these Daily Herald/ABC7 poll numbers are eleven days old because the 6th District poll was conducted Oct. 19-24 and the 8th District survey was taken Oct 18-24. The margin of error for both polls is 4 percentage points.
The freshest numbers, according to pollster.com, come from Democratic pollster Bennett, Petts, & Blumenthal. The survey of 400 likely voters taken Oct. 23-24 had Duckworth ahead 44-43. But here’s the narrative from the Daily Herald on its poll:
In the 6th Congressional District race to succeed retiring Rep. Henry Hyde of Wood Dale, Republican state Sen. Peter Roskam led Democratic Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth 46 to 42 percent […]
Of Roskam’s 46 percent, 27 percent said they were strong supporters, with 19 percent less strong in their support. Duckworth had 28 percent say they were strong backers, with 14 percent less strong. […]
Only 36 percent of those surveyed thought the country was headed down the right path, with 54 percent saying it’s going in the wrong direction and 10 percent not sure. Bush carried the district in 2004 with 53 percent of the vote.
Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran who opposes the war, is getting support from 66 percent of those who feel the country is on the wrong track. Roskam, running as the candidate of the party in control of the federal government, is backed by 22 percent of the wrong-direction voters.
The Daily Herald has the situation far worse for Bean, with the incumbent polling 8 points under 50 percent and the third party candidate eating up votes:
To the north, 8th District Democratic Rep. Melissa Bean of Barrington held a 42 percent to 39 percent lead over Republican investment banker David McSweeney of Barrington Hills [third party candidate Bill Scheurer is at 8 percent] […]
Although Bean hasn’t gone out of her way to bash Bush, she gets support from 62 percent of those polled who think the country is on the wrong track. Scheurer picks up 12 percent of those voters. […]
McSweeney captured only 68 percent support among those identifying themselves as strong Republicans and just 55 percent among those leaning Republican. That presents perhaps McSweeney’s biggest challenge. “If McSweeney can persuade and energize his natural base of Republican support, he will win the race,” Day said.
McSweeney’s support is based more along party lines: 22 percent saying they back him because they dislike Bean, with another 21 percent saying they back him because he’s a Republican. About 17 percent cited McSweeney’s issues, with an additional 9 percent specifying his opposition to abortion rights as the reason they’ll vote for him.
If this poll is right, and if those Republicans come home for McSweeney, this might be a major upset in the making.
*** UPDATE *** Duckworth’s last TV ad of the season is below.
There was an interesting little question in the Post-Dispatch poll released over the weekend about electric rates. Even when told that the utilities are claiming that extending the current electric rate freeze could drive them into bankruptcy, a solid majority of 56 percent still wanted the freeze to go ahead.
QUESTION:As you may know, electric rates are scheduled to sharply increase in Illinois next year as the result of deregulation of the market. Some say the state should freeze those rates because there isn’t adequate competition in the market yet. The electric industry says continuing the freeze could drive it into bankruptcy. In your opinion, should the state:
“The power companies are going to need a hell of a PR campaign'’ to win over the public to the rate hikes, predicted pollster Del Ali. “It’s not enough to threaten to go bankrupt, because people don’t care.'’
That was apparent in comments by poll respondents such as Cheri Akers of Hamilton.
“I would be more than happy to see it freeze,'’ she said. “I don’t think they would go bankrupt. I think the companies are bluffing.'’
