Third consistent poll on IL-11
A new Roll Call poll is echoing an already-somber tone for Republicans in central Illinois, as state Senate Majority Leader Debbie Halvorson (D) has a double-digit lead against Chicago-area concrete magnate Marty Ozinga (R) two weeks before Election Day.
The automated SurveyUSA poll was conducted for Roll Call on Oct. 20-21.
In the poll, Halvorson, whom Republicans have worked overtime in recent months trying to link with Land of Lincoln’s scandal-plagued Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D), was ahead of Ozinga, 50 percent to 37 percent.
Green Party candidate Jason Wallace took 9 percent of the vote.
The survey, which interviewed 623 likely voters had a 4-point error margin.
I don’t hide that I like Debbie a lot and think she’ll be a great Congress Critter as Rich would say. That said, the job of tieing Ozinga to Blagojevich is audacious given Debbie’s role in being Emil’s lieutenant. That said, I also pointed out when Ozinga got in that the entire Republican case in Illinois had to be bashing Blagojevich and the Republicans chose the guy who couldn’t effectively do that.
As is becoming clear, this is a wave election–as I also predicted some months ago. I would expect some surprises—my guess being Harper. Roskam works his butt off and is a good campaigner. He could get caught in a wave given the partisan breakdown, but it’ll be tougher to catch him. Schock is a putz, but he’s seen as moderate even though he’s a movement wingnut and also works his butt off. The scandal has a chance to tarnish that a bit, but he’s a tough campaigner. Manzullo has potential to be surprised, but he works the district hard so it’s a bit tough to surprise him.
Biggert seems to have only woken up in the last few days and as Rich posted a comment from someone, she fits the profile of someone about to be surprised. Here’s Harper’s latest ad:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00B61p47ruU[/youtube]
My guess right now is that IL-10, 11, and 13 flip to Democrats giving Dems a 14-5 edge in Illinois Congressional seats with only one suburban seat.
In 2004, it was 10 R to 9 D. If we flip that to 14 D to 5 R, we can be proud of doing our share. For now. But it will take a lot of work in the next 12 days.