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The Mechanics
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IL-10 Sat Oct 16 2010

Will Money Change The Tide In IL-10?

Last Wednesday Bob Dold, the Republican running in the race for Illinois's 10th Congressional seat previously held by Mark Kirk, released impressive fundraising numbers for the third quarter, especially for one of the few races that's commonly considered a shoe-in for the Democrat, Dan Seals. Dold raised $834,766.94, about $200,000 more than in the last quarter.

It's also about $200,000 more than Seals raised this quarter. The Seals Campaign has been mum about fundraising numbers this quarter suggesting they knew their numbers wouldn't match Dold's. Seals raised $639,143 this quarter (read the Seals raw fundraising report here and the Dold third quarter fundraising report here).

It's a continuation of a favorable trend for Dold. In the second quarter Seals raised $556,156 and Dold raised $561,843. The first quarter was much more promising for Seals. In the first three months of the year Seals raised $662,773 compared to Dold's $504, 822.

So the fundraising advantage has been slowly moving Dold's way. The polls don't reflect that though. Even though Dold has been closing the money margin in the 10th Congressional District race Seals has kept a steady lead.

Still, that was when the fundraising margin was much smaller. The question going forward is whether Dold's fundraising advantage will spill over into the polls. At the end of the third quarter Seals reported $601,662 cash on hand and Dold reported having $978,820 cash on hand.

 
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Chris / October 16, 2010 10:54 PM


Things might have al ready turned around for Dold.

On 10/15/10 a new poll came out from WeAskAmerica.Com which had Dold at an eleven percent advantage over Seals with the totals equaling out to be 50% for Dold, 39% for Seals, and 10% undecided.

Combine that with the fundraising advantage and Dold suddenly pulls even with Seals.

Link: http://weaskamerica.com/2010/10/15/were-baaack/

It should be noted, however, that in the land of endorsements Seals just picked up the Daily Herald tonight, along with the Sun Times a week ago.

Dold came away with a nod from the Tribune.

Daniel Strauss / October 16, 2010 11:03 PM

Hmmm, interesting. Thanks for pointing that one out. I need to check with a friend of mine but I believe WAA are generally fairly accurate. That 10% though...pretty big margin for undecideds this far out from November.

Chris / October 16, 2010 11:35 PM


Yep-very large margin of undecideds, al though it does fall in line with a poll conducted by "The Hill" this week which also had the undecideds at 11% (al though, oddly, it had the race completely opposite with Seals leading Dold by 12 points, al though the sampling size of "The Hill" poll was under 500 people, whereas WAA was at over 1000. In addition, The Hill poll has since been identified by RealClearPolitics as having a "D" lean).

Speaking of the undecideds, when I took a look at the particulars of the WAA poll only 11% of Independents and 7% of Republicans were undecided. Surprisingly what brought the overall undecided rate up so much was 37% of Democrats being undecided!

If Seals cant even shore up his own party support, and if Dold continues to hold his 13% advantage over Seals amongst Indy voters, then Seals has a problem on his hands.

Right now I simply have to label the race a toss up since this poll, while reliable (historically anyway), is a bit different then what "The Hill" put out there this week.

It should be noted, by the way, that WAA conducted a poll on this race 2 months ago where Seals had a 3 point lead, and broke completely even with Dold with Indy voters.

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