President Donald Trump’s record in office may prove a drag on Republican candidates for state offices and for the US House of Representatives in Illinois. That is one of the findings of the latest Simon Poll® from the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois Carbondale.
The results are based on live telephone interviews with 715 likely voters, a subset of 1,001 registered voters polled statewide. The margin of error for the likely voter sample is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.
In addition to Trump’s effect on votes for Illinois offices, the tax reform bill passed last December by the Republican-controlled Congress is unpopular among Illinois voters, and may prove to further hinder the success of GOP Congressional candidates.
More than half (54 percent) of likely voters surveyed said “President Donald Trump’s record in office” made them less likely to vote for Republican candidates for state office in Illinois. Most of those (47 percent) said the president’s record made them much less likely to vote for Republican candidates. By contrast, just under a third (30 percent) said the president’s record made them more likely to vote for GOP candidates for state offices; about a quarter (24 percent) said his record made them much more likely to vote for Republicans.
Large majorities in Chicago (69 percent) and the collar county suburbs (59 percent) said the president’s record would make them less likely to vote for Republicans for state office, compared with about four in ten (39 percent) downstate.
Most Republican voters said the president’s record would make them more likely to support GOP candidates (76 percent), while most Democrats said his record would make them less likely (83 percent). Among Independents, about twice as many said Trump’s record would make them less likely to support GOP candidates for state offices (50 percent) than said it would make them more likely (23 percent).
“We’re not surprised that President Trump’s record is unpopular among Democrats and in urban areas,” said Charlie Leonard, a Simon Institute visiting professor and one of the supervisors of the poll. “What has to concern Republican candidates is his negative impact on votes among Independents and in the suburbs—voters the GOP needs for success statewide.”
The results were similar when interviewers asked about Trump’s record and its effect on their votes for Republican candidates for Congress: 54 percent said it would make them less likely to vote for GOP Congressional candidates, while 32 percent said the president’s record would make them more likely to do so.
Impacts were the same as those for state offices by partisan group and geography. Eight in ten (80 percent) Republicans said the president’s record would make them more likely to vote for GOP Congressional candidates, while eight in ten Democrats (84 percent) said it would make them less likely. As before, his record was twice as likely to have a negative impact than a positive impact on GOP votes for Congress among Independents (50 percent negative vs. 25 percent positive).
Most Chicago and collar county voters (69 percent and 59 percent) said Trump’s record would make them less likely to vote for Republicans in Congress. About four in ten downstate voters (39 percent) said its impact would be negative while 47% said its impact would be positive.
The tax reform bill passed last December by the Republican-controlled Congress and signed by President Trump is unpopular among Illinois voters, according to the Simon Poll. Half (54 percent) oppose it, and about a third (32 percent) support it.
Among those with an opinion on the tax bill, most (56 percent), as before, say it will make them less likely to support Republican candidates for Congress, while about a third (33 percent) say it will make them more so.
Negative electoral impacts from the tax bill were larger in Chicago (70 percent) and its suburbs (63 percent). Downstate, half (51 percent) said the tax bill would make them more likely to support Republican Congressional candidates, while about four in ten (38 percent) said it would make them less likely.
Partisan differences were predictable, with eight in ten Republicans reporting a positive electoral impact from the tax bill (83 percent), and nearly nine in ten Democrats (86 percent) reporting a negative one. Independents were more likely by 20 percentage points to report that the tax bill would make them less likely to vote for a Republican for Congress than to say it would make them more likely to do so (48 percent vs. 28 percent).
“President Trump’s record in office and the GOP tax cuts are only a net asset for Republican candidates downstate, and only the tax cuts garner a narrow majority for the Republicans there. In Illinois a least, both are unlikely to give a significant boost to Republican candidates”, said John S. Jackson, one of the co-directors of the poll.
Peter Roskam was one of the top drivers of that tax bill and nearly two-thirds of suburbanites oppose it. Oof.
