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*** UPDATED x1 *** Poll: Jim Ryan has 7-point lead over Quinn, trails Hynes by 2

Monday, Dec 21, 2009 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Last week, I wondered aloud why Rasmussen Reports didn’t bother to match the two Democratic gubernatorial candidates against Republican frontrunner Jim Ryan. Well, RR has now conducted another poll, and the results aren’t encouraging for Gov. Quinn’s backers…

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Illinois voters finds former state Attorney General Jim Ryan leading incumbent Democratic Governor Pat Quinn 46% to 39%. Nine percent (9%) of Illinois voters like some other candidate, and six percent (6%) are undecided.

Ryan’s is within two points of Illinois Comptroller Daniel Hynes, who hopes to wrest the Democratic nomination from Quinn. In that match-up, Hynes attracts 42% of the vote while Ryan gets 40%. Seven percent (7%) opt for another candidate. Eleven percent (11%) are undecided.

Quinn and Hynes both polled ahead of the other major Republican contenders last week, although Hynes polled marginally better than Quinn.

Good point from Rasmussen…

It’s important to note that at this stage, the close contest between Quinn and Hynes may be depressing the Democratic vote in match-ups with the Republicans. Once the party selects a gubernatorial candidate in its February 2 primary, supporters of the losing candidate can be expected to begin moving into the winner’s column.

That theory bears fruit in the crosstabs, which I’ll discuss with subscribers tomorrow.

Back to the pollster…

Ryan carries male voters over both Quinn and Hynes. He has a nine-point advantage among female voters against Quinn but loses women by 10 points to Hynes.

Voters not affiliated with either party strongly prefer the Republican over either of the Democrats. […]

In a generic Illinois gubernatorial ballot match-up in October, a Democratic candidate held a 43% to 37% edge over a Republican.

Ryan is viewed more favorably than any other GOP candidate and his favorables are in roughly the same territory as the two Democrats.

Toplines are here. Crosstabs are here.

Methodology…

Illinois Survey of 500 likely Voters conducted December 20, 2009. Margin of Sampling Error, +/- 4.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence

This is a one-day, Sunday poll. There are all sorts of problems with that, but the automated dial is the least of them.

Discuss.

*** UPDATE *** Jim Ryan was at the Daily Herald edit board today and talked about Stu Levine and his own health…

“Stu Levine gave me a lot of money over my entire career,” said Ryan, who also was DuPage County State’s Attorney for three terms. “I thought he did it because he believed in me. He did a lot for me, I didn’t do anything for him except to be his friend.” […]

Ryan went on to say he is anticipating a barrage of attacks in the final weeks of the campaign about Levine from others in the seven-candidate primary race.

“I’m not going to cower,” he said. “If people think I’m going to back down because of that, they are wrong.” […]

Ryan also talked his health Monday. The 63-year-old battled non-Hodgkin’s large cell lymphoma cancer three times, most recently during his first campaign for governor eight years ago.

“I think I’m healthy or I wouldn’t do this,” Ryan said. “If that changes, you will know because I will probably won’t stay in the race.”

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Hynes does better than Quinn vs. Republicans, but Ryan wasn’t tested

Friday, Dec 18, 2009 - Posted by Rich Miller

* As I told subscribers this morning, Rasmussen has a new poll pitting the two Democratic gubernatorial candidates against three different Republicans. Dan Hynes does better than Pat Quinn against the Republicans. The problem, though, is that for whatever reason Rasmussen didn’t test Jim Ryan against the Democrats. Bizarre.

From the narrative…

The top two Democratic hopefuls in Illinois’ 2010 race for governor both beat three leading Republican challengers in the latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in the state.

But state Comptroller Daniel Hynes, who hopes to wrest the Democratic nomination from Governor Pat Quinn, runs slightly stronger against all three Republicans. Among just Democratic voters, Hynes draws slightly more support than Quinn.

That’s pretty interesting considering that Hynes is losing so badly to Quinn in the Tribune’s primary poll.

More…

Quinn, who became governor in January following the impeachment of Rod Blagojevich, beats former state Republican Party Chairman Andy McKenna 41% to 33%. Hynes bests McKenna by even more, 43% to 30%.

Against GOP State Senator Kirk Dillard, Quinn wins 41% to 30%. But Hyines takes Dillard 42% to 29%.

State Senator Bill Brady, who unsuccessfully sought the GOP gubernatorial nomination in 2006, fares the worst of the three Republicans. He loses to Quinn by 15 points – 45% to 30% - and to Hynes by 19 – 46% to 27%.

Around 20% of voters remain undecided in all of Hynes’ match-ups, with slightly fewer saying the same when Quinn is the Democrat in the race. […]

Quinn is viewed favorably by 52% and unfavorably by 44%. Just five percent (5%) have no opinion of the incumbent governor. Fifty-two percent (52%) also have a favorable view of Hynes, while 30% regard him unfavorably. But 18% don’t know enough about him to venture even a soft favorable or unfavorable opinion.

McKenna has the highest favorables (42%) among the GOP candidates, while 34% view him unfavorably. Thirty-eight percent (38%) have a favorable opinion of Dillard, with another 36% who see him unfavorably. Brady is regarded favorably by 36% and unfavorably by 37%.

But roughly one-in-four Illinois voters don’t know any of the Republican contenders well enough to express an opinion of them.

Toplines are here.

Crosstabs (subscribers only) are here.

From the crosstabs, here are the Quinn-McKenna party support numbers…

And here are the Hynes-McKenna party support numbers…

Methodology…

Illinois Survey of 500 Likely Voters Conducted December 14, 2009 By Rasmussen Reports. Margin of Sampling Error, +/- 4.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence

* Meanwhile, a Dan Hynes spokesman claims that yesterday’s endorsement of Quinn by Secretary of State Jesse White looks like it was held back in order to spring at the most opportune moment…

[Hynes spokesman Dan McDonald] said the governor wants to change the subject as questions arise about an unpublicized early release program for state prisoners. He charged that Quinn has flip-flopped on his knowledge of the program and let criminals off easy.

Earlier this week, Quinn ordered a “top-to-bottom” review of the release program, but said it was a Department of Corrections issue.

Since then, the Hynes campaign has continued to raise questions about it, first in connection with a plan to bring Guantanamo detainees to Illinois and now in light of the timing of White’s endorsement.

“I think it says that the governor doesn’t want to talk about his convoluted policies,” McDonald said. “He’d rather try to roll out an endorsement than answer questions.”

And Quinn’s campaign has a new video of the White endorsement. Watch it…

* Related…

* Topinka stages political comeback

* 2 congressmen weigh in on Cook County Board president race

* Daley, Preckwinkle at same event

* Anti-Semite booted from ballot in 10th District race

* Congresswoman Melissa Bean Says Imposters Posing As Her on Facebook

* Republicans endorse candidate in 5th District

* Three GOP lt. governor candidates resigned to Gitmo move

* Congress can stop plans for prison, GOP rep says

* Madigan: Quinn has authority to close Thomson deal

* Illinois attorney general rules Gov. Pat Quinn can sell Thomson prison

* Attorney general says governor may sell prison

* Click here to read the attorney general’s legal opinion on the Thomson prison sale

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Friday, Dec 18, 2009 - Posted by Rich Miller

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*** UPDATED x1 *** McKenna facing “ethics probe” by state GOP?

Tuesday, Dec 15, 2009 - Posted by Rich Miller

* I’m not sure what, exactly, an “ethics probe” is if it’s conducted by the Illinois Republican Party, but somebody over at HQ apparently doesn’t love Andy McKenna…

Sneed has learned GOP gubernatorial hopeful Andy McKenna is the target of an ethics probe by the Illinois Republican Party, which he once chaired.

• To wit: Sneed is told the Republican State Central Committee, the party’s managerial arm, has authorized an investigation of McKenna’s use of GOP money to commission a poll without consent of fellow party members. The committee claims the poll was used to determine McKenna’s chances of success as a statewide GOP candidate in this election cycle. (Other names of GOP candidates, besides McKenna’s, were used in the poll.)

• To wit II: The Illinois GOP party also cast a dim view of the “high” salaries awarded GOP party employees earlier in the year, but then darted over to McKenna’s campaign when he announced his bid for governor — but it’s unclear if the ethics panel, which has yet to be formed, will include it in the probe.

Do you think a public rebuke by the party will matter?

* Rival GOP candidate Dan Proft claims to have obtained a copy of the poll that McKenna ordered as party chairman. Proft released two pages yesterday with the results redacted. You can download those pages by clicking here.

McKenna polled several top contenders at the time, including Ron Gidwitz, Bill Brady, Matt Murphy, Joe Birkett, Tom Cross, “Bill” [sic] Schillerstrom, Mark Kirk, John Shimkus and himself.

Proft…

(I)t is clear that Andy McKenna has not been honest with the party when he explains that he hadn’t considered running for office until a groundswell of grassroots organizers and Chicago GOP financiers begged him to run. This is clearly untrue.

What McKenna did as ILGOP Chairman is nothing other than conversion of corporate funds for personal use. At least, that’s how it would be viewed had he done the same thing in the business world, a world he professes to know something about it. It is a typical insider play by a typical insider politician.

Andy McKenna is spending millions of dollars on television advertisements trying to convince himself and unsuspecting Illinois GOP primary voters that he is an “outsider”. It is a curious argument for someone who spent the past five years as the Illinois Republican State Party Chairman to make, but this is Illinois after all where even self-styled reformers go to jail.

I ask the other candidates in the race to join me in demanding that McKenna reimburse the party for the cost of that survey and apologize to competitors of mine with whom he was not forthright.

Illinois Review tried to get a response from McKenna’s campaign…

Lance Trover of the McKenna campaign called IR, and when we asked the campaign’s response to Proft releasing this survey and the allegations of the Proft campaign, Trover said, “We will not comment.”

*** UPDATE *** From a press release…

Senator Bill Brady, Republican candidate for Governor, released the following statement today:

It’s become abundantly clear in recent days that during his time as Illinois Republican Party Chairman, my opponent Andy McKenna, may have violated the conflict-of-interest ethics rules he himself put in place.

McKenna apparently authorized a $25,000 internal poll while he was the Illinois GOP Chairman, that he subsequently used to to determine his chances of success as a statewide republican candidate in this election.

News reports indicate McKenna sanctioned the poll and use of Illinois Republican Party money without the permission of fellow party leaders. His actions reek of impropriety, which is why I am calling on McKenna to come forward and set the record straight.

If Andy McKenna did indeed use $25,000 of his own party’s money for personal use, what’s to say he wouldn’t do it to the taxpayers of Illinois?

Sadly, McKenna is not the only candidate in this race involved in corrupt politics of the past.

Jim Ryan, another of my opponents, took $800,000 in campaign contributions from close friend Stuart Levine, all along claiming he didn’t know Levine was corrupt.

These are perfect examples of Chicago-style politics Illinois so desperately needs a clean break from. Next to jobs and taxes, ethics is of most importance to Illinois and its voters. We need a clean break from the corrupt, unethical politics of the past. Illinois needs a candidate who will fight corruption, not take part in it. I am that candidate.

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Tuesday, Dec 15, 2009 - Posted by Rich Miller

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