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Elections Mon Oct 04 2010
All Bets are Off for 2010 Elections in Illinois
We interrupt this 24-hour Rahm Emanuel coverage to give you something only related to Rahm Emanuel. Don't worry dear readers, you'll be able to read about exactly where Rahm stood and what shirt he was wearing on day 1 of his listening tour soon enough. In the meantime I wanted to call attention to this PPP poll released Friday of last week. There's been a good amount of commentary about some of the poll's results but the truth is that the findings are really so subtle you have to read it for yourself:
Before we go forward a a caveat: PPP tends to be a bit kinder to Democrats than other pollsters. I could try and go into how that doesn't make them biased but I'd just confuse you and me in the process. Suffice it to say that this pollster has a slight lisp to the left. Second, the poll surveyed the mayoral race, senate race, and gubernatorial race in Illinois but for some reason there's no question on Sheriff Tom Dart. That's kind of a big omission if you're trying to get the precise temperature of what's going on in Illinois politics. The poll did include Rep. Jesse Jackson which is also odd since as of right now his mayoral bid seems a bit of a longshot.
Okay now for what I found interesting in the poll results. The poll found that former Governor Blagojevich is the most politically reviled male political figure out there today. That's no surprise.
What's actually news is that the generic ballot is tied at 44% for the Democrat and 44% for the Republican. That's good (and surprising) news for the left who everyone had been crafting eulogies more. It seems to be a national trend.
The poll also surveyed which race voters are most excited about. PPP found that Democrats tend to be more excited about voting in the Senate race and Republicans seem to be more excited about the gubernatorial race. I'm not quite sure what to make of this to be honest. I suppose the only explanation is that Illinoisians are having an easier time supporting Brady and not supporting Mark Kirk. Hispanics seem to be falling with the Democrats in terms of race enthusiasm. Hispanics are most excited about the senate race which, it's logical to assume, means they'll be voting for Alexi Giannoulias over Kirk.
Wow, how long has it been since I last mentioned Rahm Emanuel in a post about politics in Illinois? Three minutes? Five? I better put a stop to that right now. The poll found that Rahm Emanuel's favorability is 29% favorable to 50% unfavorable. Keep in mind though that those results are statewide. It's not surprising that downstate Republicans and non-Chicagoans (who often enough tend to be rather conservative) don't hold a favorable view of the former Chief of Staff. In Chicago (where Rahm's favorables actually matter to him) those numbers are flipped. Fifty percent have a favorable view of Emanuel while about 30% have an unfavorable view).
But here's the kicker. Rahm's favorables aren't that great among younger voters. 18-29 year olds tend to have an unfavorable view of Emanuel 34%-53% with 14% not sure. You'd think the former right hand man to the politician most young people like would get a little more love but if this poll is to be trusted, Emanuel has got some work to do. Actually though Emanuel's numbers aren't much better among 30-45 year olds or 46-65 year olds. In fact, they're about the same or worse.
Still, the key here is Emanuel's favorability int he region where he's running for office, metropolitan Chicago. Over there he's doing okay but remember, this is a poll that doesn't include the other mayoral heavyweight, Tom Dart, so take all these findings with a grain of salt.
Did I miss anything? What'd you find interesting?
Crossposted
