Governor-elect Pat Quinn said he wants to "energize the people of Illinois" to take on great causes at a late-afternoon press conference in Chicago today.
Gov. Pat Quinn is in a jubilant mood today, and with good reason.
Moments ago, GOP gubernatorial nominee Bill Brady conceded the
gubernatorial race to the Democrat. Watch a portion of
his concession speech below, courtesy of ABC 7:
Quinn, who defied polling and pundit predictions to win the tight and
expensive campaign in a decidedly Republican year, declared
this morning that he was the "people's governor." It's a mantle he
deserves, having out-hustled his Republican rival in the final days of
the campaign.
Certainly, Illinois faces several daunting and unresolved challenges,
the most important of which is state's budget crisis. Quinn, however,
is an internal optimist. "I will go to work tomorrow as a new governor,"
he told the Sun-Times' Michael Sneed, "who is determined to get
more people working; to bring companies to Illinois; to bring jobs to
families in desperate need of them." We look forward to watching him
try.
Along with Public Policy Polling, Rasmussen Reports was the most
active polling firm in Illinois this cycle. Throughout the summer and
fall, their research consistently gave GOP gubernatorial nominee Bill
Brady a sizable lead in Illinois' gubernatorial race; in the last eight polls the firm conducted, Brady averaged a 7.8 point advantage.
It
seems now that those figures were wildly inaccurate. While a strong
progressive ground game gave Gov. Pat Quinn a huge edge on Election Day,
it's also probably true that Quinn himself never trailed as badly as some
assumed.
What explains Rasmussen's poor performance? For whatever
reason, the firm refused to include all of the candidates in their
surveys and thus missed the number of potential Brady voters who decided
instead to support Scott Lee Cohen. But FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver
says the problem with the firm's tactics, which rely too heavily on
"party identification," runs deeper:
We have critiqued the firm
for its cavalier attitude toward polling convention. Rasmussen, for
instance, generally conducts all of its interviews during a single,
4-hour window; speaks with the first person it reaches on the phone
rather than using a random selection process; does not call cellphones;
does not call back respondents whom it misses initially; and uses a
computer script rather than live interviewers to conduct its surveys.
These are cost-saving measures which contribute to very low response rates and may lead to biased samples.
These results are worth keeping in mind next election cycle.
With Gov. Pat Quinn clinging to a slim lead, it's worth taking a look at how he built it, what groups of voters turned out to support him, and what Bill Brady's options are going forward.
State Sen. Bill Brady (R-Bloomington) said he's willing to wait for up to a month while all ballots are counted to see if he can overcome Gov. Pat Quinn's lead in the gubernatorial race.
Along with Public Policy Polling, Rasmussen Reports was the most
active polling firm in Illinois this cycle. Throughout the summer and
fall, their research consistently gave GOP gubernatorial nominee Bill
Brady a sizable lead in Illinois' gubernatorial race; in the 
