Progress Illinois

Since entering the U.S. Senate race, former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman has repeatedly suggested that fellow Democrat Alexi Giannoulias can't beat GOP frontrunner Mark Kirk in the general election.  Today, the Giannoulias campaign released a poll that indicates, if the election were held today, their candidate would fare better against Kirk than Hoffman.  Here is the pair of head-to-head results (the only data made available by the Giannoulias camp):

Giannoulias: 46%
Kirk: 43%

Hoffman: 39%
Kirk: 48%

*Results based on a sample of 805 likely general election voters conducted October 25th – 28th.  Margin of error: +/- 3.5%

A Rasmussen poll conducted in mid-September found somewhat similar results: Giannoulias and Kirk tied at 41 percent and Kirk leading Hoffman by 10 percentage points. Rasmussen also had Kirk leading Democrat Cheryle Jackson by four points.

Speaking of Jackson, she filed her nominating petitions just an hour before the deadline today.

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Back in April, the SEIU Illinois State Council (which sponsors this website) commissioned a citywide poll and found that only 41 percent of respondents gave Mayor Daley a positive job approval rating, down from 56 percent in a 2006 survey.  Now the Tribune has conducted a new poll of their own which suggests that even fewer Chicagoans approve of the mayor's performance today:

For the first time since he became mayor two decades ago, Daley's critics outnumber his fans, a Tribune/WGN poll found. The mayor's approval rating is at an all-time low of 35 percent in Tribune polls, according to the new survey.

Not surprisingly, the mayor -- in a comment reminiscent of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich -- blamed the poor numbers on the economy: 

“It has nothing to do with my popularity. These are serious times … People are mad because of the uncertainty of the economy. It’s been going very well and all of a sudden everything collapsed."

But the frustration among respondents goes beyond economic woes.  Check out their feelings about the mayor's parking meter privatization debacle:

Nine out of 10 people disapprove of the parking meter deal, according to the Tribune/WGN poll, which surveyed 380 Chicago voters from Aug. 27 to Aug. 31. The poll has an error margin of 5 percentage points.

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In a front page story today, political reporter Rick Pearson examines a new Tribune/WGN poll of 700 registered Illinois voters and describes President Obama's home-state approval rating as "shaky." Here's an excerpt:

The results of the poll, conducted Aug. 27-31, indicate many of Obama's home-state voters have the same concerns that voters have shown in national polling, where confusion over a complicated health-care reform plan and continued worries about employment have taken an even greater toll on the president's approval rating.

Rich Miller offers a thoughtful critique of Pearson's summary over at Capitol Fax, pointing out that it's not particularly instructive to compare Obama's current approval ratings with those from February, when they were artificially high and the president hadn't yet endured any bruising legislative fights. After all, Obama only won the state with 61 percent of the vote in November.

He also knocks Pearson for his supposition that "Obama’s standing with home-state voters could create problems for Illinois Democrats, if it continues into next year’s general election." A downward trend is obviously never encouraging for a politician or a party. But the president is still broadly popular in the state (only 33 percent disapprove of his performance thus far) and will likely remain so, especially if some version of health care reform is approved.

Then there's Pearson's conclusion regarding independents:

Among the potentially troubling signs for Democrats that surfaced in the survey was the fact that only about half of voters who describe themselves as independents approved of Obama's job performance. Illinois has voted Democratic in recent elections, but independents remain a key swing block.

The Tribune did not release the survey's cross tabs, so we can't see the exact figure Pearson is referring to here.  (Does "about half" mean slightly more than 50 percent? Slightly less?) But it's worth noting that, according to Illinois exit polls, 55 percent of self-described "Independents" supported Obama last November, compared to 43 percent for John McCain. Dropping a few percentage points is hardly definitive, let alone "potentially troubling."

As Michael Sneed mentioned it in her Sun-Times column today, Gov. Pat Quinn recently commissioned a statewide poll measuring both his and challenger Dan Hynes' support among Democratic voters.  The survey, conducted by Democratic pollster Anzalone Liszt, found Quinn leading the state comptroller by 28 points on the sample ballot:

Quinn: 54%
Hynes: 26%
Undecided: 20%

751 live telephone interviews with likely 2010 Democratic primary voters in Illinois. Interviews were conducted between August 18-26, 2009, and were apportioned geographically based on past voter turnout. Expected margin of sampling error for these results is ± 3.6% with a 95% confidence level.

The polling memo from John Anzalone is clearly intended to dissuade Hynes from running (he is scheduled to officially announce his candidacy later this morning):

Hynes may not begin with the same deficit in name ID as many other challengers, but that also means he doesn’t have the same easy expansion potential as other challengers. He faces a difficult and expensive climb in a primary battle with only about five months remaining. [...]

There is no natural base for Hynes in this primary. Quinn currently polls over 50% with every demographic and geographic subgroup, including men and women, union and non-union households, whites and non-whites, the Chicago media market and downstate.

The poll also found that Quinn has a 72 percent favorability rating among the Democratic respondents, as opposed to Hynes' 56 percent.

Read the full survey below (click the button in the upper righthand corner to expand):

The latest from Illinois' 2010 electoral landscape ...

U.S. SENATE

Rasmussen Reports released their first poll on the IL-SEN race yesterday, measuring head-to-head general election matchups between GOP Rep. Mark Kirk and Democratic candidates Alexi Giannoulias and Cheryle Jackson.  The toplines show Kirk and Giannoulias in a toss-up, while Kirk posts a considerable lead over Jackson:

Giannoulias (D): 38
Kirk (R): 41
Other: 4
Undecided: 17

Jackson (D): 30
Kirk (R): 47
Other: 6
Undecided: 17
(MoE: ±4.5%)

The poll registered 83 percent name recognition for both Kirk and Giannoulias and 74 percent for Jackson.  Giannoulias was recognized by 70 percent of respondents in an April poll, so it seems feasible that he could his name ID could have jumped in the months since.  Kirk's numbers seem extremely high for a member of Congress who has never run for statewide office.  That being said, he probably gets more media coverage than any other Illinois representative.  Then there is Jackson's 74 percent name ID, which just seems unrealistic considering she's never run for office, let alone been on a statewide ballot.

In short, wait for a few other surveys to surface before putting too much stock in this poll.

In other U.S. Senate news, Jackson is facing questions about her role in the Blagojevich administration's Loop Lab School debacle. Meanwhile, Sun-Times columnist Laura Washington yesterday described the Jackson "playbook" as she sees it:

Rake in some heavy green. While her profile will attract some soft-focused free media, this political unknown needs money big time for TV commercial time.

Jackson's got to play the race and gender cards. She is assiduously wooing Emily's List, the powerful national PAC that backs women candidates. As Giannoulias has done in the Greek community, she must cultivate a national profile among prominent women and monied Democratic liberals.

The black "keep-the-seaters" are an unpredictable bunch, but they could come in handy, as well.

IL GOVERNOR

The Rasmussen poll also measured favorability for Gov. Pat Quinn, Comptroller Dan Hynes (who plans to challenge Quinn in next year's Democratic primary), as well as the various Republican contendors.  Here's what they found (favorable/unfavorable/not sure):

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On Friday, Rasmussen Reports released a new poll that touches on various Illinois political narratives, including the income tax hike debate and the 2010 U.S. Senate and gubernatorial fields.  Below is our quick rundown:

The Income Tax
Rasmussen asked voters "how likely is it" that the legislature can balance the budget without raising the income tax rate. Over two-thirds (68 percent) described it as "unlikely."  Because the poll didn't ask whether respondents themselves supported such a hike, we're left with this conclusion from Capitol Fax: "[I]t’s difficult to know whether the majority has no faith in the GA’s ability to do this without a tax hike, or they understand the budget problem better than most people think." The poll also quoted a recent statement from Gov. Pat Quinn -- "A budget in a lot of ways reflects the values of the people. It's very important that in our budget, every year, we take care of our neighbor" -- and asked whether respondents agreed. Thirty-nine percent said they did agree, 35 percent said no, and 26 percent weren't sure.

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The Sun-Times' columnists have some interesting scuttlebutt on the 2010 U.S. Senate field today.  Lynn Sweet published the results of a poll featuring select match-ups.  While she doesn't say who exactly commissioned the survey or what firm conducted it, we do know this: It came from a "Republican interest" and was conducted on May 7.  Despite these mysterious origins, it gives us the first look at what the prospective Democratic primary field would look like with Chris Kennedy in the mix:

Jan Schakowsky: 20.0%
Alexi Giannoulias: 16.4%
Roland Burris: 15.9%
Chris Kennedy: 12.7%
Undecided: 35.0%

If you compare these numbers to the previous two polls conducted on the Schakowsky-Giannoulias-Burris field, you'll see that Burris' support is in the 16-18 percent range in all three of the surveys.  So what effect does Kennedy have?  At first glance, he appears to drain more support from Giannoulias than Schakowsky, but the data is too sparse to draw any solid conclusions.

Sweet further notes that half of the respondents weren't familiar with Kennedy and that learning about his relation to RFK and JFK didn't seem to have much effect.  She also posted head-to-head numbers featuring potential GOP candidate Mark Kirk, which found tight races against both Giannoulias and Kennedy.  Absent were the head-to-head figures in a Kirk-Schakowsky contest, which makes you wonder what the "Republican interest" found there.

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Lynn Sweet caused some ears to perk up yesterday when she reported that Mark Kirk was "poised" to jump in the 2010 U.S. Senate race. The timing seemed about right -- after all, he told reporters several weeks ago that he would make a decision by the end of the month. However, Sweet later changed her brief report to insead describe him as "mulling" a Senate run, which is nothing new.  And a 10th District conservative blog writes this morning that they don't expect any announcement today. (As an aside, our daily e-mail incorrectly reported yesterday afternoon that Kirk had "confirmed" his Senate bid.  We apologize for the error.)

On the Democratic side, quite a few Senate surveys have surfaced since Rep. Jan Schakowsky released her primary poll on Monday.  On Wednesday, Public Policy Polling released the results (PDF) of a push-button survey which found the following in a three-way primary between Schakowsky, State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, and incumbent Sen. Roland Burris:

Burris: 16%
Giannoulias: 38%
Schakowsky: 26%
Undecided: 21%

Now let's compare those numbers to the Schakowsky phone poll conducted by Lake Research Partners:

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The SEIU poll we've been delving into over the past 48 hours also measured opinion among Chicagoans regarding both the 2010 gubernatorial contest and the Cook County board president race.

With regards to the governor's office, the survey tested a head-to-head match-up between incumbent Pat Quinn and Attorney General Lisa Madigan and found she has twice as much support within the city limits.  To put these numbers in some more context, Chicagoans made up 40 percent of those who cast ballots in the 2006 Democratic gubernatorial primary:

Notice that her support is highest in the African-American community.  Quinn clearly has some work to do there.

The poll also asked about a three-way Democratic primary match-up between County Board President Todd Stroger and potential challengers Toni Preckwinkle and Forest Claypool. Remember these numbers are only for the city (which represents slighty more than half of the county's population):

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Yesterday, we documented how a citywide poll conducted in late March for the SEIU Illinois State Council (which sponsors this website) found that Mayor Daley's approval rating is at an all-time low and that Chicagoans want a more active and assertive City Council.  Indeed, 84 percent of respondents agreed "there should be checks and balances on Mayor Daley's ability to control the city budget and how city funds are spent."

But what would Chicago residents like to see their taxpayer dollars spent on?

The poll posed this question in various different ways and the answers are interesting.  Here are what the respondents' viewed as the "top priority for elected officials in Chicago":

Creating local jobs: 27%
Education: 21%
Crime: 15%
Government corruption: 11%
City services: 9%
Taxes: 7%
Home foreclosures: 5%
Public transportation: 4%
Don't know: 2%

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