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Two more polls confirm Emanuel lead

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Polls

Ogden & Fry conducted two polls for the Chicago Mayoral runoff contest. A 1-question poll with 920 respondents was run on Friday, March 13, 2015 without “undecided” as an option. The usual weekly 1-question poll was conducted on Saturday, March 14, 2015 with 957 respondents. Respondents were selected by random sampling of likely voters.

* The results…

* From the pollster…

Despite an impressive roll-out of high-profile endorsements for Garcia, Emanuel has opened a lead on Garcia. Emanuel’s financial advantage is starting to have an effect with his TV commercials.

Conventional wisdom is that undecideds usually do not break for a well-known incumbent. Garcia seems to hold around a 6% (53%-47%) advantage with the undecided voters at this point.

But that advantage with undecideds ain’t enough.

Crosstabs are here.

Garcia got a nice bounce out of the first round. He was a fresh face and Emanuel clearly underperformed. But Garcia needed to sustain that bounce and build on it. So far, at least, he appears to be stalling out.

posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 12:10 pm

Comments

Of those who actually picked a candidate in the first pool, 56.6% picked Rahm. This compares to 54.7% in poll number two. With both polls being roughly +/- 3% at the 95% confidence level, one might conclude that both polls are pretty accurate.

Comment by Keyser Soze Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 12:24 pm
I’ll be interested to see how Carhartt Representative responds to this new poll:

https://capitolfax.com/2015/03/13/poll-has-emanuel-leading-51-37/#comment-11880314

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 12:26 pm
My sense is this poll is pretty solid.

Though, Rahm has to be careful. There’s a discernible enthusiasm gap out there. Chuy’s supporters are more energized, mostly by their dislike of Rahm.

Comment by PTR Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 12:30 pm
Garcia still has numbers and some ==mo==, but eventually needs to push back on Emanuel’s media buy.

Comment by Formerly Known As... Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 12:40 pm
In a high turnout election, Chuy Garcia wins b/c the extra people will be voting for change.

Polls take into account assumptions about who will vote.

Voter turnout was weak in both the primary and general election in 2014. If that’s true in April 7, 2015 election, the advantage goes to Rahm Emanuel.

If the progressive orgs can turnout the vote, the advantage goes to Chuy Garcia.

As has been said, nobody likes Rahm Emanuel. If he’s circling the drain, no one is going to throw him a lifeline b/c they like him.

Comment by Carl Nyberg Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 12:49 pm
Hasn’t this always been the case when undecideds were pushed? There were number of posters here who noted it was a pretty steep climb (given the primary numbers) for Garcia.

There was probably an opening after the primary, but at some point he needed to move beyond “not Rahm”.

Comment by HappyToaster Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 12:57 pm
It’d be neat to see Chuy land some blows in the debates.

Comment by Ghost Payroller Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 1:01 pm
“In a high turnout election, Chuy Garcia wins b/c the extra people will be voting for change.”

Maybe but always dangerous to speculate here, unless you’re looking at the polling data.

I do think that’s correct, in a -really- high turnout election, because the polling data seems to suggest that voters under 40 break more toward Chuy. And that’s a group less likely to vote. But that’s like super-high turnout. “Moderately higher turnout” is more ambiguous, it depends on who the added marginal voters are. Could be frightened Loop and Lincoln Park Republicans, some of them.

Comment by ZC Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 1:11 pm
High Republican turnout would be good news for Rahm.

Comment by Alice Keister Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 1:13 pm
Chuy is not nearly as good as Rauner at avoiding specifics. Other than red light cameras, what will Chuy do differently than Rahm, and where will Chuy get the revenue the city will need (and they will need more if he takes down the red light cameras)?

Comment by chi Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 1:14 pm
Don’t forget fear moves people too. There are a good number of “status quo” voters out there who stayed home a few weeks ago.

Chuy’s gotta get up on TV and start reminding people why Rahm is so bad in order for Garcia to have a chance. Rahm’s spent the last two weeks taking shots at Chuy and they sure seem to be working at least a little.

Comment by From the 'Dale to HP Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 1:18 pm
Garcia is lagging in getting over the hump of his bump.

Rahm is still in “good shape”.

It’s really up to Garcia and his Crew to drag Chuy over the line and I’m still not convinced Garcia or the other 3 were capable to beating Rahm one on one.

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 1:20 pm
If Chuy were to start dumping on Daley for his role in causing this financial mess, that would give him a bump.

Comment by Original Rambler Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 1:21 pm
“If Chuy were to start dumping on Daley for his role in causing this financial mess” - he would be doing Rahm a favor and generate sympathy for Rahm as well as good will amongst Daley supporters for not pointing out the 800 lb gorilla in the room. There’s a good reason why the 11th Ward has a runoff and this is it.

Comment by Alice Keister Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 1:31 pm
Chuy’s gotta bring some qualified full-time workers onto his campaign — especially people who are experts in new media communication, effective speeches and quotations, passionate surrogates, credible policy, and memorable campaign themes. Here is where his campaign is sorely lacking:

1. Not sending out regular emails and texts to voters and people who regularly contribute to campaigns.

2. Milk toast speeches and OpEds.

3. No credible plans (or even policy parameters) in finance, jobs creation, cops on the street, youth at risk, re-opening schools, or any other thing that voters care about.

4. No surrogates out there ginning up the crowds.

5. No attention-grabbing or game-changing speeches or quotations.

6. No unifying campaign theme, such as: From Our Neighborhoods, For Our Neighborhoods; This Ain’t Wilmette; Together We Can; etc.

Comment by ChiTownSeven Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 1:45 pm
What will Chuy do differently than Rahm?

Remove red light cameras,

Moratorium on charter schools,

Put more police on the streets,

Be the mayor of all the people.

Comment by Enviro Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 1:50 pm
Chuy needs to gin up his base by running full blown “soak the rich” populist campaign. However, he needs to be very careful how defines rich. Madigan’s millionaire tax is a very good example of only targeting the truly wealthy and not the upper middle class and those aspiring to be in the upper middle class. Another reason to be careful: If he is too broad in defining the “rich”, he may include public sector employees and retirees in this definition…

This strategy, of course, would be incredibly divisive and might lead to max exodus of the middle class to parts elsewhere if he wins the election. Right now, the “I’m slightly nicer and different than Rahm” approach is not working to drive turnout or bump numbers.

Comment by Alice Keister Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 1:56 pm
Those Chuy folks from last week are remarkably silent. I thought they would be claiming that these two are also part of the conspiracy.

In fact, Chuy has had a tough week or so. As the spotlight turns on him, we are seeing that he may be a nice guy, but he’s really not prepared to be Mayor. He hasn’t done the homework. He’s got nothing to offer than “I’m not Rahm.” That carries some weight, but not enough to get over the hump.

The real lesson here is that in four years challengers will know that they cannot wait until after the November election to start the race. Even Fioretti, who everybody knew was in it, made that mistake.

Even at risk of getting lost with November, a candidate is going to have to get going early. The candidate is going to have to have the research done and the team in place, because there is not enough time between November and the first round to make a difference.

Comment by Gooner Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 2:01 pm
== What will Chuy do differently than Rahm?

Remove red light cameras,

Moratorium on charter schools,

Put more police on the streets,

Be the mayor of all the people ==

Drive the city into Bankruptcy faster!

Comment by blankster Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 2:03 pm
Hey Rich, I totally respect these polls. I’ve thought all along that Rahm was probably leading at this point by around 4-5%. The Tribune showed 14% and Ogden and Fry shows 10%. I also said that it was quite possibly an outlier until we saw more polls. I am always skeptical about a single poll. I do think that Mexicans are always underpolled and so are younger voters less likely to have land lines. I think this election is still Garcia’s for the taking, but he does need to do well on the debates.

Comment by Carhartt Representative Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 2:11 pm
=Drive the city into Bankruptcy faster!=

I don’t think that’s possible

Comment by Carhartt Representative Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 2:11 pm
After four years Rahm has not shown us that he can improve Chicago’s financial problems. Asking the state of Illinois to bail out Chicago seems to be his only strategy. The state can’t keep bailing out Chicago and letting the city take pension holidays to keep it running.

Comment by Enviro Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 2:21 pm
Like it or not Emanuel is still dictating the race. Garcia demonstrated this first hand by having to go on the defensive in unveiling his financial plan which offered no details. Now it’s not lost on me that Emanuel’s plan are also lacking any details. But the larger problem for Garcia is that he allowed Emanuel to back him into a corner and came out of it looking weak. I expect this trend to continue over the next few weeks. Absent some large intervening event it’s hard to see Garcia gaining any momentum at this point.

Comment by pundent Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 3:15 pm
Rich had an interesting blog link to Salon which indicated that Emanuel’s big donors have ponied up more cash to safeguard their, uhm “investments.” According to the “Salon” posting, an estimated sixty percent of the major donors or their companies have done business with the city under Rahm.

Comment by Under Further Review Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 3:57 pm
=== Chuy’s gotta bring some qualified full-time workers onto his campaign. ===

I remember you mentioning this last week, and that Chuy had turned away some of these types of people. Do you have some examples of qualified full time staff that Chuy has turned away?

Comment by Hacksaw Jim Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 4:35 pm
Voting starts next Monday.

Comment by HappyToaster Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 6:30 pm
The red light camera issue must have stung, as Emanuel says he’s now going to remove more.

Gee, won’t that make the city less safe? It was all about safety, right?

Comment by Wordslinger Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 6:33 pm
That debate should give Chuy some help. Has Rahm ever done one of these before? Starting every answer with “let’s go back four years” or “there you have a difference” really didn’t do him any favors nor did some easily fact checked lies.

Comment by Carhartt Representative Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 7:22 pm