The
Chicago Tribune has released a poll on the primaries for the Illinois Governors race, and surprising nobody, Judy Baar Topinka and Rob Blagojevich lead the respective races.
Poor Ron Gidiwitz. I guess blasting the airwaves with commercials for what seems like the last year hasn't paid off.
Details below
The basic results of the poll:
The poll showed Blagojevich with the support of 62 percent of Democratic voters, compared with 18 percent for former Chicago alderman and federal housing official Edwin Eisendrath. An additional 18 percent were undecided among the sample of 600 likely Democratic primary voters.
A separate survey of 600 likely Republican primary voters found Topinka, the three-term state treasurer, supported by 38 percent, compared with 17 percent backing businessman Jim Oberweis. Eleven percent supported businessman Ron Gidwitz and 8 percent backed Bloomington state Sen. Bill Brady. A total of 25 percent of GOP voters were undecided, while perennial candidate Andy Martin got less than 1 percent support.
So, Topinka has a plurality of the primary votes, but not a majority, and the undecideds are a large enough chunk that she shouldn't be declaring victory. Also, as I theorize below, Topinka gets noticeable support from social conservatives, which will likely soften as election day nears (mid March). Blago, on the other hand, is safe through the primary. The general, though, is quite another issue.
A key finding of the latest poll showed that voters who identified themselves as very conservative were splitting their support evenly between Topinka, a social moderate, and Oberweis, a conservative. Voters who want to see more restrictions on abortion also were evenly split between Topinka, an abortion-rights supporter, and Oberweis, who supports limiting abortion.
This is somewhat surprising. I would have thought that Oberweis would have cleaned up the strong-conservative wing of the GOP electorate, setting up a moderate vs. conservative scenario in the primary. I have to wonder, therefore, whether this poll is perhaps overestimating Topinka's strength and underestimating Oberweiss. The abortion issue in particular makes me think that.
And, it seems that Ron Gidiwitz has just been pissing money away:
Gidwitz's spending of more than $2 million has had some impact among voters. Now, fully 85 percent of voters recognize his name, yet a plurality--45 percent--has no opinion on whether they view him favorably or not. Brady, who has begun limited advertising, is known by 72 percent of the voters, but like Gidwitz, 45 percent have no opinion of him.
85% name recognition, but half of those have no opinion. Ouch. I'm sure there was some better use for those 2 megabucks.
And finally, while Blago is safe in the primary, we may have a problem in the general:
Only 35 percent of Democratic voters said Blagojevich has kept his 2002 campaign promise to end business as usual in Springfield, while 41 percent said he has broken that commitment. Barely half of Democrats--52 percent--said they would like to see Blagojevich re-elected, indicating that while there is appreciable unhappiness in the ranks with the current governor, many do not see Eisendrath as a viable alternative.
Now, I should note that because this poll was conducted as two separate samples of primary voters (600 likely primary voters from each party), they didn't ask about the general election. My sense is that Topinka would be a much stronger candidate in the general than Oberweiss, and would pose a significant threat to Blagojevich. Both parties are having high-profile ethics issues; the corruption trial of former GOP governor George Ryan is well under way, and will probably drag on through the spring. On the other side of the coin, both Blago and King Richard II of Chicago are dealing with questionable business and hiring practices of their own.
Best guess: Corruption issues cancel each other out. National GOP woes and a state GOP apparatus in disarray lead to Blago getting reelected by a small margin.
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