Democratic
state treasurer candidate Alexi Giannoulias has a new poll that shows he has an
eleven-point lead over his Republican opponent, state Sen. Christine Radogno.
Giannoulias
has struggled since shortly before the spring primary. Reporters started
looking into his family's bank business, and came up with ties to some
seriously shady mobsters. Things went downhill fast.
But
all the bad publicity hasn't helped Radogno, a moderate, well-liked Republican
state Senator from the suburbs who had been considered by some to be the
Republican with the best chance of winning a statewide race this November.
The
poll had Giannoulias leading Radogno 46-35. The survey of 600 likely voters was
taken July 10-16 by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. It had a margin of error
of 4 percent.
The
result is very close to polls taken recently by SurveyUSA and Rasmussen. Both
pollsters found that Governor Rod Blagojevich was leading Judy Baar Topinka
45-34.
The
SurveyUSA poll's details showed Illinois' partisan breakdown to be 43 percent
Democratic, 32 percent Republican and 23 percent independent. So, in other
words, candidates in both the treasurer's race and the governor's race seem to
be holding right about at their expected party support levels.
Those
poll results also show just how difficult it is these days for an Illinois
Republican to win statewide, particularly in down-ballot races where voters are
far less focused and far more uninformed. Democrats who can hold onto their
base don't have very far to go to get to 50 percent plus one vote. In order for
Republicans to win, they have to sway a whole lot of independent voters and
also try to convince as many Democrats as possible to cross over. Since
independents here tend to lean towards the Democrats, that job is even tougher.
Without
strong name recognition, wooing all those voters takes a lot of money, and it's
not certain how much cash Sen. Radogno will be able to spend this fall. Her
best hope is probably that those harshly negative media stories flare up once
again on Giannoulias.
According
to the internal numbers provided by Giannoulias' campaign, Giannoulias leads
Radogno among independents 39-27. He has an 18-point lead among senior
citizens, 49-31, and is ahead with men, 43-40, and women 49-32.
The
pollster also divided the state into four sections, Chicago, suburbs, northwest
IL and southern IL. The suburbs includes suburban Cook County, and northwest IL
comes as far south as Peoria and Bloomington. Everything below that is
considered southern IL.
Giannoulias
leads in Chicago 68-11, has a 45-37 lead in the suburbs and is tied in southern
IL 41-41. Radogno has a 47-35 lead in northwest IL. Radogno's campaign declined
to comment on the poll.
As
I write this, neither candidate has filed their semiannual campaign finance
reports yet, and it's unknown how much more of his own money Giannoulias is willing
to spend on this race after dumping a big chunk of his personal fortune in the
primary.
It's
also unknown whether US Sen. Barack Obama will appear in any more TV ads for
Giannoulias this fall. After Obama expressed some concerns about the way
Giannoulias was handling all that negative press the candidate hired some new
staff. Since then, things have improved somewhat. Those Obama endorsement ads
were indispensable to Giannoulias last spring, when he defeated the state
Democratic Party's endorsed candidate, Paul Mangieri. He'll need them again if
the press continues digging up dirt.
Another
sticking point for Giannoulias is that he and House Speaker Michael Madigan
have yet to patch up their differences from the spring campaign. In fact, they
haven't even spoken to one another. Madigan, who is also the state party
chairman, strongly supported Paul Mangieri in the primary. These days, Madigan
reportedly remains unconvinced that Giannoulias can ride out the mobster
stories, and is still peeved that the 30-year-old political neophyte chose to
run against his own party's slated candidate in March.
The
Illinois State Fair is coming up soon, though, and both Madigan and Giannoulias
will be there for Governor's Day. It should be fun to see how they handle it.
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Rich
Miller also publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and
thecapitolfaxblog.com