* I was pretty tough on Democratic Congressman Phil Hare’s latest TV ad yesterday. He had it coming. But Hare now has a new ad up that whacks Schilling for not paying taxes while alleging that Schilling wants to raise payroll taxes. Rate it…
The payroll taxes hit comes from a Chicago Tribune questionnaire that Schilling’s son says he filled out and “misphrased”…
…Schilling responded to a question about the solvency of Medicare and Social Security by saying, “I believe that there will need to be an increase in Medicare and Social Security withholding taxes.”
The “not paying taxes” hit is about Schilling twice not paying his annual business franchise tax to the Secretary of State. Schilling’s corporation was officially dissolved both times. Click here for the documentation. This is a pretty minor offense, but Debbie Halvorson was hit with the same thing two years ago by Republican Marty Ozinga.
POLITICO has learned that the National Republican Congressional Committee will take a bank loan of at least $6.5 million – but likely more—to expand its ad buys into seven additional districts beyond the 55 where the committee has already reserved time.
According to an NRCC source familiar with the effort, the newly-added targets include five Democrats whose districts until recently were thought to be out of reach this year: Minnesota Rep. Tim Walz, Georgia Rep. Sanford Bishop, Illinois Rep. Phil Hare, and Ohio Rep. Zack Space, and Colorado Rep. John Salazar.
A recent poll by Public Opinion Strategies of 400 likely voters, conducted on September 26 and 27, with a margin of error of 4.9 percent shows Schilling and Hare tied at 37-38 percent. Schilling leads Hare by 18 points among voters who have heard of both candidates, and by 29 points among voters who have an opinion of both candidates. Pollster Glen Bolger said of this poll “Incumbent Phil Hare has real problems with the electorate in this district. Voters are upset at the direction of the country. Hare’s image is underwhelming. Incumbents at 38% on the ballot test don’t win unless they are successful at burning down their opponent.”
* As I told subscribers this morning, The Hill has a new poll showing the 11th Congressional District race isn’t even close. Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson is getting blown out by Republican Adam Kinzinger…
Right now, the outlook for Halvorson appears grim. The Hill/ANGA poll found she trails Kinzinger by 18 points — 49 percent to 31. Another 18 percent of likely voters remain undecided.
Kinzinger also leads among most major demographic groups. He’s ahead by 26 points among male voters and by 11 percent among females, and leads in all age groups by 10 points or more. Kinzinger also holds a wide lead with independent voters — 53 percent to 24.
* Scott Lee Cohen recently appeared on “Public Affairs” with host Jeff Berkowitz. The host did a pretty good job of letting Cohen talk about his programs, but then methodically zeroed in on his, um, “issues.”
Cohen stumbled a few times when talking about his budget plans. And he refused at first to answer a question about his net worth, eventually saying it is between $6 and $7 million. He claimed he’s put $3-4 million into the campaign since the primary. That’s not exactly evident. He says he’s about half-way to his degree at DePaul and wants to eventually obtain a law degree.
Cohen called last week’s Chicago Tribune editorial board “debate” a “witch hunt, not an endorsement session” because of the pointed questions they asked him. He said that Bill Brady and Pat Quinn spent their time at the meeting “making asses of themselves.” Cohen also said of Tribune columnist Eric Zorn, “He’s pretty ignorant.” Zorn claimed Cohen quickly “folded” under pressure and bowed out of the lt. governor’s race.
“Character does count,” Cohen said when pushed by Berkowitz. “Look at half the legislators out there, they’ve been arrested for different things,” Cohen claimed, adding that unnamed people had been “convicted” of armed robbery and are still in politics. He said his own arrest for allegedly knifing his alleged prostitute girlfriend was “nonsense.” He also claimed that he pays child support. His ex-wife had taken him to court over the issue.
* Meanwhile, Cohen plans to unveil a new jobs plan tomorrow morning at the Odyssey Yacht at Navy Pier. A press release claims “upwards of one hundred veterans and others” will be there as well. From that press release…
According to Cohen, “The All Hands on Deck” program will focus on those who have suffered chronic unemployment, like veterans, the disabled, teenagers, tech workers and ex-offenders.”
“This is a significant economic recovery plan for the state of Illinois,” says Swilley. “It is capturing the attention of social service agencies, unions, and businesses large and small.”
“As far as I’m concerned”, says Cohen, “The All Hands On Deck” plan, is the heart and soul of what our campaign is all about. It’s a down payment on a big investment in the people of Illinois.”
* So far, nobody has asked Bill Brady about the solid evidence that Cohen is hurting his candidacy. Any ideas how Brady can deal with this?
* A new Suffolk University poll has Gov. Pat Quinn leading Bill Brady 43-37. The toplines are here. From the pollster…
Quinn’s margins over Brady among ages 18-44 years (+25 points), Cook County voters (+30 points), and minority voters (+38 points) are the driving forces behind the Democrat’s edge in the statewide numbers.
I called the pollster because I noticed an error in the toplines. They show “Chicago” as being 38 percent of their universe. The pollster said this was a typo and it should read “Chicago and suburban Cook County.”
If you look at the extensive crosstabs, you’ll see Quinn is leading Brady 41-33 43-36 with women and 41-34 42-39 with men. I just don’t buy either of those results yet unless Quinn has performed some sort of crazy voodoo magic.
Still, the poll had Mark Kirk leading Alexi Giannoulias by a point, 42-41, which is in line with most other recent polls. And they had the generic congressional ballot essentially tied at 42 Democratic and 41 Republican. That is essentially the same result that Public Policy Polling got. So, it’s odd, man. Odd.
According to the pollster, Scott Lee Cohen is at 7 percent, Rich Whitney is at 3 percent and Lex Green is at 1 percent. I can buy those, too.
* The pollster was the first to survey the constitutional ballot question this year providing for gubernatorial recall. Just 48 percent were in favor and 44 percent were opposed.
* Other races…
* Lisa Madigan 63, Steve Kim 14
* Jesse White 60, Robert Enriquez 15
* Judy Baar Topinka 39. David Miller 23
* Dan Rutherford 32, Robin Kelly 26
* They also asked some policy questions. 18 percent said an ounce or less of marijuana should be legal, 19 percent said the amount should be decriminalized, and 33 percent said it should be legal only with a prescription. Total that up and you get 70 percent in favor of changing the state’s stupid laws. Just 21 percent said an ounce or less should be illegal under any circumstances. Another 10 percent was undecided.
* 37 percent of voters came out “absolutely against” any legally recognized unions for same sex couples, while 24 percent supported civil unions and 30 percent backed legal marriage.
* And 69 percent backed term limits for Congress of six, two-year terms. 25 percent opposed it and 5 percent were undecided.
* Last week’s Tribune poll with Pat Quinn leading Bill Brady by a point kick-started a whole lot of buzz behind the GOP curtain that the paper’s Senate poll would have Alexi Giannoulias with an even larger lead. So, Kirk did a little preemption by leaking his ad buy and his own internal poll to POLITICO, which dutifully published its story a couple of hours ahead of the Tribune poll release Friday night…
Republican Mark Kirk has reserved almost $5.2 million worth of advertisements for the final weeks of the competitive Illinois Senate race, POLITICO has learned. […]
Kirk’s campaign is prepared to empty its arsenal and spend about $1 million each week in an effort to win the Senate seat previously held by President Barack Obama. […]
Kirk campaign’s own polling shows him ahead: An internal polling memo from the Kirk campaign and obtained by POLITICO shows him holding a 9-point lead. Kirk had 42 percent and Giannoulias had 33 percent, per a Kirk-sponsored Fulcrum Campaign Strategies poll taken Sept. 26-29 of 900 likely voters in Illinois. About 22 percent of survey respondents were undecided and the Green Party nominee, LeAlan Jones, received 2 percent in the poll.
A potentially troubling sign for Kirk is that voters in the traditionally Republican-leaning collar counties were almost equally split between the two candidates on the trustworthiness question.
In addition, 41 percent of voters, including 42 percent of independents, said they were less likely to vote for Kirk because of his exaggerated military claims, while 59 percent said it made no difference or didn’t know enough to decide.
About one-third of voters, including the same percentage of independents, said Giannoulias’ connection to the bank and loans to convicted felons would make them less likely to vote for the Democrat. The remaining nearly two-thirds said it didn’t matter or didn’t know enough to weigh in. […]
Kirk’s esteem dipped among independent voters, a key swing demographic. A month ago, only 17 percent viewed him unfavorably. Now 34 percent do. Overall, Kirk holds a 38 percent to 27 percent edge over Giannoulias among independents, similar to his margin last time, though 22 percent are undecided.
While the Republicans say the pollsters are contacting the wrong people, the fact remains that three polls released last week had the Illinois governor’s race within 2 percentage points. And five polls released in the past month have shown it to be a single-digit race.
The Chicago Tribune’s pollster had Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn leading Republican state Sen. Bill Brady 39 percent to 38 percent last week, which is a narrower margin than its 5-point Brady lead a month ago. A CNN/Time poll had Brady up by 2 points, and a Democratic Governor’s Association poll had Brady up by 1 point. Public Policy Polling had Brady with a 7-point lead.
The Republicans say the “universe” is skewed on all these polls. They believe that Republicans actually outnumber Democrats come Election Day by a narrow margin. At the very least, they say, those other polls just skew too far Democratic.
If the Republicans are right, it would be the first time their party would outnumber or come close to outnumbering Democrats in any Illinois election in a very long time. This is a weird year, so nobody really knows who’s correct at the moment. Still, you need to keep the GOP’s strong objections very much in mind as we head into the final weeks of this campaign.
The other thing to remember is Quinn’s horrific job-approval rating. The average of the four polls that asked the job-approval question (CNN did not) was a 26 percent approval rating for Quinn, while 58.5 percent disapproved of his performance. He’s already vastly outperforming his approval rating, so it will be darned tough to push his own numbers up much higher unless people start feeling better about him soon.
Still, you simply cannot ignore five polls in a month showing Quinn within single digits of Brady. Whether the governor can pull this off is another story.
Why does this race suddenly look so close? For months, polls have shown it to be a blowout for Brady.
I now firmly believe this race has been much closer than I thought for weeks, if not months. The reason why I and others got this wrong is very bad polling.
Every poll published from the beginning of August to before last week had Brady leading Quinn by anywhere from 9 to 13 points.
Well, actually, one poll did show a close race. At the beginning of last month, the Chicago Tribune’s poll had Brady leading Quinn by only 5 points.
That Tribune poll was so different from the others that it essentially was ignored. But then last week, those other polls came out that showed a tighter race than widely assumed, and I noticed something curious. Pollsters who did not include millionaire independent candidate Scott Lee Cohen’s name in their polls showed a far wider gap between Brady and Quinn than those who did.
Last month’s Tribune poll included Cohen’s name in the mix, as well as the other candidates. The polls released last week that showed a tight race included his name as well.
The average of all five polls during the past month that included Cohen’s name is 38.6 percent for Brady and 35.8 percent for Quinn - a roughly 3-point split. The two-month average for polls taken that didn’t use Cohen’s name was 46.4 for Brady to 35.8 for Quinn - an almost 11-point race.
Notice that Quinn’s average is exactly the same in both sets of numbers. Brady’s is different. Why?
In a two-person race, when you attack an opponent, a portion of your opponent’s supporters eventually will cross over to your side. But in races where lots of people are running, when you attack your main opponent, then his or her supporters might end up with one of the other “minor” candidates.
If you drill down into the polls, it appears that significant numbers of women voters left Brady after Quinn’s early attacks and moved to Cohen. Now, I know that sounds absolutely insane, considering the domestic abuse allegations involving Cohen and his arrest for allegedly holding a knife to his girlfriend’s throat. But lots of people still don’t know who and what Cohen is. And the news media has all but stopped reminding them.
Some top Republicans have been increasingly jittery that Cohen might be making this thing a little too close for jubilation. They appear to have been right.
Finally, maybe Mayor Daley’s retirement from public office did not suck all the oxygen out of the state-wide races - as many pundits predicted. It was thought that the free-for-all for the Chicago Mayor’s Office would shift all attention and resources to that election. But, it may have merely caused Chicagoans to focus more on politics in general.
The last theory is purely speculative. But, the way things looked for him a few weeks ago, Pat Quinn needed any help he could get. With one month to go, the Illinois governor’s race may be less about change and more about whether Illinois’ typical Democrat/liberal base goes to the polls.
That’s certainly part of it. The oxygen was surely sucked out of the coverage, but maybe not out of the interest.
Thoughts?
* Related…
* Brady discounts polls that show Quinn gaining ground: “We don’t really believe it’s tightening,” Brady told reporters at a tea party event in front of the Statehouse. “Our internal data … shows that our momentum is growing every day. Our internal polls continue to show a strong, growing support for us.
* Brady rallies local support: “I have a problem with red light cameras being used too extensively,” he said.
* Northwest Herald: Governor: Bill Brady: For small-business owners, the backbone of our local communities, Brady proposes a five-year moratorium on federal payroll taxes and the creation of a Main Street Small Business Advisory Board to help the owners of small and fledgling businesses get off the ground and grow.
* Civil unions, concealed carry could confront next governor: “Bill believes marriage is the union of one man and one woman,” said Brady campaign spokeswoman Patty Schuh. “Our current laws reflect that.”
* Journal-Standard: Candidates need to step up: The report complains that 32 percent of the state inspection reports reviewed by the federal EPA were not detailed enough to determine if a confined-animal operation was complying with environmental laws; that state enforcement actions were rarely taken, and in more than 60 percent of the cases reviewed by the feds the state failed to get compliance even after violations were found. The report contends that the Illinois EPA is slow to respond to citizen complaints or take formal action against big feedlots and dairies that violate federal and state environmental laws.
* Tax policies display sharp differences for Quinn, Brady: While Brady is currently proposing elimination of the estate tax, “we don’t know what the feds are going to do,” Schuh said. “If they set it for estates over $10 million, maybe we’d take a look at it.”
