A new poll out from Public Policy Polling of 591 Illinois voters has Congressman Mark Kirk pulling ahead 37-33 over State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias. (Full results and crosstabs here). Just prior to the February primary, PPP had Giannoulias over Kirk, 42-34. But, as PPP notes, the last few weeks/months have been devastating for Giannoulias as scandals at his family-owned Broadway Bank continue to develop, and are now getting national attention. This shows in the polling numbers, as Alexi's unfavorables have increased from 19% to 28% over that period, and his favorables have dropped from 31% to 21%.
Interestingly, according to the PPP poll, Kirk is winning 77% of the Republican votes, with only 16% undecided, which would imply that Kirk is seeing strong support among most Republicans, despite some primary challenges mainly from the right.
While PPP notes that Kirk still has an uphill battle given Illinois' overall blue bent, it also states that if Democratic voters continue to be unhappy with Alexi (and Governor Pat Quinn) and "decide to just stay home or even worse to vote Republican Kirk has a pretty decent shot at winning this. There may not be a state in the country where Democrats have a weaker top of the ticket at this point than Quinn and Giannoulas."
h/t to longtime reader/commentor Badge of Honor. Thanks BOH!
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2 comments:
This is great news. My guess is alexi lied to the white house about his family's banking trouble because there's no way they would have allowed this kind of toxicity in a candidate running for his seat.
77 percent is a weak number for republicans who usually are much much more partisan in backing candidates (bush got 95 percent of republicans in 2004). After blago forces conservatives to choose between corrupt liberal democrats and mark, I think the number will increase.
The other thing is that the persuadables are democrats who I think largely live in the suburbs and are independent. Union and special interest democrats that need government generally back their candidates like alexi no matter what because they need things from the candidate's election and so aren't open minded. These are very winnable voters for mark.
election looks to be in good shape as long as alexi stays where he is which is battered, bruised and unwilling to leave a battle he is losing badly.
FOKLAEAPS
Not wanting to throw a very wet blanket on this poll or the thought that Mr. Kirk might actually be in the lead, just remember that we have a long road ahead, that the rank and file Democrats will forever and always vote that way. It doesn't matter one hoot in hell that Alexi is a very flawed, somewhat stupid jerk. He is a Democrat in a State where that's all that really matters. Let's just hope that the team at 1600 doesn't push hard on this simpleton to get out. We need this chance of a lifetime. Not sure this conceited kid would be easy to push aside, but then again, we're talking about Chicago politics, guys, and that's what scares me about all of this. Our State and our Nation deserves the kind of leadership that Mark Kirk will provide. It's up to all of us to help make it happen.
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