Here are some numbers from the Land of Lincoln.
January 9, 2004
By SARAH ANTONACCI
of Copley News Service
SPRINGFIELD - With 10 months left before the presidential election, a Copley News Service poll finds that fewer than half of the respondents would vote to re-elect President George W. Bush, and his Democratic challengers have some work to do to get their names out to the voters.
Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. of Washington, D.C., conducted the poll Monday through Wednesday, asking 625 registered Illinois voters across the state a variety of questions about the presidential election. Those questions involved candidate name recognition, favorable ratings and who voters would select if the election were held today.
The sample has a margin of error of 4 percent.
"There's no election right on top of this, so I wasn't terribly surprised by the results," said Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon Polling and Research. "These numbers more than likely will change over time. It's changing on a daily basis.
"Bush is well known to all the voters in the state, and some of the Democratic candidates are not as well known. At least three of them are recognized by 90 percent of the voters. (John) Kerry and (Wesley) Clark are still blank slates to sizeable portions of the electorate."
The poll asked voters whether they recognized the names of Bush and of the five Democratic challengers generally considered the front-runners. The three Democrats voters generally recognized were U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri, U.S.
Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut (the 2000 vice presidential candidate) and Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.
Jason Gerwig, a spokesman for Bush, said Thursday he considers the numbers promising for the president. The poll found that 42 percent of those surveyed view Bush favorably, 37 percent unfavorably and 21 percent were neutral.
"Looking at these numbers - and ones especially for the Democrats - for a state that people have written off as Democratic, these numbers show anything but," Gerwig said.
Dean spokesman Kevin Conlon said he looks at the name-recognition poll a little differently. Dean had a 20 percent favorable rating, 31 percent unfavorable and 40 percent neutral; 9 percent of respondents didn't recognize Dean's name.
"His unfavorables are less than Bush. That's comparable to other recent polls," Conlon said.
Illinois' primary isn't until March 16. As a result, many of the candidates haven't begun campaigning here. Instead, they are concentrating on states with earlier primaries.
That's why Conlon thinks the poll results are good for Dean.
"It's not the same as in Iowa, where he's been 100 times. We're very confident that when the voters of Illinois get to know him more and more, he will do even better," Conlon said. "We feel good about those results, and we feel confident that we put together a wonderful slate of candidates and we have every reason to think we can prevail."
Dean is generally considered the Democrat to beat in the early primaries.
Coker said Illinois has a history of leaning toward Democratic candidates, but it will be interesting to watch Dean when he begins to campaign here. Dean has been targeting Democratic activists in primary states, Coker said.
"He's taken a calculated gamble to go left to win the nomination and then work his way toward the middle by fall," Coker said. "Dean's unfavorable rating (in the Copley poll) is almost as high as Bush's. That's something to ponder should he become a nominee."
The poll also asked voters who they would vote for when each of the five leading Democrats were matched head-to-head with Bush.
Bush beat them all, but never with a majority of the entire survey. His margins ranged from 9 percent (over Dean and Clark) to as low as 4 percent (over Lieberman and Gephardt).
"I'm not surprised, with the state's political leanings, that his leads are only small," Coker said.
Adam Kovacevich, a spokesman for Lieberman, said the poll numbers show Democrats, especially his candidate, are running strong in Illinois.
"These results show that Joe Lieberman is in the best position possible to beat Bush in the general election," he said.
The poll did not consider four other Democratic candidates who are running behind in polls: U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, Al Sharpton, former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois and U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio.
Bill Buck, a spokesman for Clark, said he views the head-to-head numbers as strong for his candidate because he's someone "whose only been running for president since September against a sitting president in a state he's never campaigned in."
Poll respondents also were asked if they thought Bush is doing a good job as president. On that question, 49 percent ranked his performance "good" or "excellent," 27 percent said "fair," 23 percent said "poor" and 1 percent were undecided.
Gerwig said those numbers are encouraging for the president.
"If you take the people who thought he was doing a fair job, that adds up to 76 percent," he said. "These are great numbers."
Pollsters also asked voters if they approve of Bush's handling of the situation in Iraq. Fifty percent said they do, 41 percent do not and 9 percent were undecided. In a similar question on the economy, 44 percent expressed approval, 46 percent disapproval and 10 percent were undecided.
"It is early, and this is by no means a snapshot of what we'll see in November," Gerwig said. "The fact that the numbers are so good for the president so early on, when no one is really thinking about the race, is encouraging."