ArchPundit has some more credible polling numbers for Illinois, both from Research 2000 Illinois. The first one I linked to shows Obama up 68-23 on Keyes, and the second shows Kerry up 54-39. Both polls have margins of error of ± 3.5 percent.
I say "more credible" because there was just no way I was buying the earlier SUSA numbers that had Bush within 4 points of Kerry and Keyes maintaining his 24 percent from the first poll taken after he was named the Gooper nominee. Kerry's support has probably softened a little in Illinois, given that Kerry/Edwards have done no campaigning here and no advertising that I've seen (though it should be mentioned that I'm not watching a lot of broadcast TV these days, or even much TV at all). But an eight-point swing? I don't think so! And with the way Keyes has been alienating absolutely everyone in the country of late, I'm frankly amazed to see that he's only dropped a single point in the latest poll.
On the other hand, the poll's internals look disastrous for the, um, "ambassador." Quoth ArchPundit, quoting the poll itself:
But even more respondents - well over half - simply don't like Keyes. In fact, the percentage of respondents who have a "favorable" view of Keyes (22 percent) was smaller than the percentage who said they hold "no opinion" about him.
Even poll respondents who identified themselves as Republicans give Keyes less than a 50 percent approval rating. When asked who they would vote for today, just 48 percent of Republicans named Keyes - while almost one in five Republicans are defecting to Obama. Meanwhile, independent voters - crucial to any Republican victory in Illinois - are backing Obama almost 4-to-1.
My guess is that most of those people who are saying they have "no opinion" about Keyes are the moderate Republicans who can't quite bring themselves to criticize their party's nominee even when he's a bottom-feeding, scum-sucking, lying sack of excrement--but don't want to go on record as liking him even in the context of an anonymous telephone survey. That's going to spell doom for Mr. Keyes. Some of that group of voters may well wind up pulling the lever for Obama. Most of them, I suspect, will either stay home or skip the Senate race altogether, although in another story, ArchPundit notes that there are a couple of brand-new write-in candidates in the race, including one Republican who just couldn't bring himself to support Keyes.
I'd look for Keyes' numbers to continue to sink. In fact, I think I'd look for his numbers to start plummeting even faster than the Dow Jones Industrial Average did on 24 October 1929.