The most recent Survey USA poll is worse than most are making it out to be for the Governor.
As always there are caveats with polls. First, Survey USA uses only robocalls for its polls, but has been pretty close to other polls taken at similar times so let’s work on the assumption the numbers are reasonable.
Second, one in twenty polls is wrong. That’s the most basic thing to remember about all polls. Polling is a science, but there is an art to understanding when a poll makes sense and when it might be that one in twenty. Beyond that, more than one in twenty can be wrong if all of the conditions of a valid and reliable poll are not met.
I can think back to a Bush approval poll in Illinois that showed improvement in his approval in Illinois while the national polls were stagnant or heading downwards. That is a case where I usually question the results because it doesn’t fit with what else we know is going on in the electorate.
Getting to the Blagojevich numbers, they have been low for some time. He’s been below 40% approval since May and the concern if you are a Blagojevich supporter is that when your poll numbers stay low, they tend to be hard to move upwards the longer they are low. There is good reason for this from the Political Science Literature. The tick mark theory as I call it suggests that individuals’ impressions of politicians or issues is set at the beginning and then moves marginally up or down based on small bits of information. So when you are in the pits, you try and stay out of the news and only have good news in the press so the marginal moves are slowly upwards until a campaign starts.
Blagojevich has generally good political instincts and he’d put together a good couple months since May to August where he wasn’t much in the middle of scandals or problems and was doing things with majority support–especially amongst Democrats and Democratic leaners. And as one might expect, his approval in August went to 43%. Still lower than an incumbent likes, but a good sign as the trend was in the right direction. Especially in a blue state, the numbers looked decent for a reelection with a trend going up towards 50%.
Then Public Official A hits and….he’s in Boy Blunder (Matt Blunt) Land again. But worse, his negatives had gone down and now shot back up. Those mental ticks are only so malleable and after sometime they won’t bounce back down if the negatives are reinforced too often.
Right now Blagojevich is getting the approval of about the 1/3 of people in Illinois who are Democrats do or die.
In a group that is overwhelmingly Democratic–African-Americans, he’s only +3 on approval and below 50%. While A-A decisions tend to be more reserved and come towards the end of the election, that’s abysmal. Worse, while Jim Edgar wouldn’t win with African-Americans, he’s always had better outreach to African-American constituencies than have other Republicans. That’ll take some rebuilding since he and Lawrence have been out of the game, but it’s a bad, bad sign.
His Latino numbers are essentially as bad as the overall numbers.
His pro-choice numbers are 40% approve, 50% disapprove. That position, barring an Edgar candidacy is one of the central themes he’ll run on in a moderately pro-choice state.
Frankly, the only good news was before the Public Official A scandal, Jones and Madigan effectively ended any chance for a serious primary. Otherwise, this is all bad news.
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