* From Normington, Petts and Associates…
To: Interested Parties
From: Jill Normington
Date: August 8, 2016
MEMORANDUM
The following is a summary of findings from a live interview telephone survey conducted among 800 likely voters in Illinois. Respondents were reached on both landlines and mobile phones. Interviews were conducted August 1-4, 2016. The sampling error for this survey is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Summary
• After the recent television exchange, Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth has expanded her lead over Senator Mark Kirk to 44% to 37%.
• Duckworth clearly won the recent television exchange that has strengthened her position and drained him of resources.
• These improvements for Duckworth took place without any commensurate advantage in the presidential race.
Over the course of the last three weeks, despite national polls showing a convention bounce for Hillary Clinton, our polling indicates that Illinois is unaffected. Our July 11-14 poll showed Hillary Clinton beating Donald Trump 51%-32%. The current August 1-4 poll shows Clinton besting Trump 51%-32%. Partisan identification is actually net two points more Republican over that span. While there is stasis at the top of the ticket, what has changed is the Senate race.
In late June, Republican incumbent Senator Mark Kirk began an advertising campaign in the Chicago media market focused on distancing himself from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. From June 23-July 28, Kirk spent more than a million dollars on two television ads that sought to establish his independence from his Republican party and attacked Tammy Duckworth on her commitment to Veterans, using the IDVA lawsuit as his primary evidence. According to his most recent FEC filing, Kirk’s million-dollar television expenditure was roughly one-third of his total cash on hand of $3.1M.
From July 14-29, Duckworth spent just $620,00 defending herself and reacquainting voters with her record. The net effect of this exchange, despite getting outspent, is that Duckworth increased her lead over Kirk. As the chart below indicates, our July poll showed Duckworth leading Kirk by just two points, 40%-38% in the wake of more than $500,000 worth of advertising from Kirk to which Duckworth had yet to respond. This most recent poll shows Duckworth leading Kirk by seven, 44%-37%, after airing her rebuttal ad.
Duckworth made gains among constituencies critical to Kirk’s success in November. She pulled ahead among Independents and grew her vote among white voters downstate, among whites without a college degree and among Veteran households. Moreover, she continues to hold substantial leads among the core Democratic constituencies of African American (71%-12%), Hispanic (69%-17%), women (48%-31%) and millennial (46%-32%) voters.
It is clear that when Duckworth has adequate resources to compete in a television exchange, that she can win it. Moreover, Kirk expenditures only served to increase Duckworth’s already sizeable cash on hand advantage over him. While there are still three months to go until Election Day, Tammy Duckworth has emerged from the initial round of paid communication with Mark Kirk in better electoral and fiscal shape than when it began.
* The chart…
…Adding… Mobile phone users were 50 percent of the total.
*** UPDATE *** From the Kirk campaign…
Just like every other Democrat, Duckworth got a temporary bump after the Democrat convention. But as her previous poll shows and the one released by the super pac demonstrates as well, once the race settles back down it’s a dead even race heading into the fall.
