Call It A Comeback
Dick Cheney–three points below Bush’s 36% approval
Obama has the mirror image with 62% approval, 30% disapproval.
The interesting thing about Bush’s numbers? He had held on to 80%+ approval amongst Republicans in many national surveys. In Illinois, his Republican approval is at 62%.
The issue numbers are as bad if not worse.
Blagojevich is going to lose big downstate, right?
Not so much as of today.
| Blagojevich | Topinka | Undecided | |||||
| CHICAGO/COOK | 55% | 27% | 18% | ||||
| COLLAR | 32% | 50% | 18% | ||||
| CENTRAL | 44% | 37% | 19% | ||||
| SOUTHERN | 46% | 36% | 18% |
He’s ahead in every area except the Collar Counties. Up by 10 downstate–now, let’s presume he’ll lose downstate–he’s not going to get killed there from the looks of it.
What I consider the key number for a primary challenge isn’t that bad for Blagojevich. Sixty-four percent of Democratic voters think he is doing an excellent or good job. Certainly, you want it stronger and those aren’t great numbers within your own party for a general election, but in a primary, that’s very tough to beat especially with all of the institutional support in the corner of the incumbent.
One of the more interesting things about issue polling versus candidate polling is how a candidate can affect the policy position of respondents. Nationally, a rule to require pharmacies to fill birth control prescriptions was around 80%. The support in Illinois in terms of Blagojevich issuing such an order, the overall approval of the move is 62%, 27% disapprove and 11% are unsure.
I’d still want to be on Blagojevich’s side on this issue because women and independents are in favor of the rule and the only key group opposed is Republicans who aren’t voting for him anyway. Even then, Republicans only oppose it with a plurality of 49%.
Rick Pearson wrote a weekend column on G-Rod’s strategy for reelection and it’s running against the Georges: Ryan and Bush.
It’s a good strategy. Sure, it might annoy you, but it’s an effective strategy.
In a state that has turned increasingly Democratic, Blagojevich signaled that he planned to take political advantage of the highly visceral reactions Illinoisans have to both men, who conveniently are less popular with voters in the state than he is
Emphasis mine.
Research 2000 polled Illinois voters for the Post-Dispatch and other Lee papers like the Pantagraph with the Governor doing better than he has with the Survey USA polls and with a slightly less Democratic weighted sample.
Rich doesn’t think it’s as bad as the story makes it out to be, and I’d tend to agree. In fact, it may be a sign of a increasing poll numbers. It’s always hard to compare polls this far out when who will vote is squishy, but his disapproval numbers are under 50% in this poll and below his approval numbers–that’s a good sign from the other numbers we’ve seen lately. He’s vulnerable regardless, but if this poll is reasonably accurate, he’s in a better position than I thought. That isn’t to say he’s home free, but it’s not the worst place to begin from when you are a good campaigner. In the breakdowns, the independent numbers are better than the SurveyUSA results have been as well which really are a key for him to capture.
Perhaps most importantly, his downstate numbers aren’t anything to brag about, but they aren’t as far in the toilet as many would expect.
Sample 800 Voters
The margin for error, according to standards customarily used by statisticians, is no more than plus or minus3.5 percentage points. This means that there is a 95 percent probability that the ?true? figure would fall within that range if the entire population were sampled. The margin for error is higher for any subgroup, such as for
gender or party affiliation.
His numbers still suck, but the Governor is sucking less than he was in middle and late 2005,
42% Approval
but the problem still is
53% Disapproval
Good signs for him are that his African-American and Latino ratings are doing better both hitting 70% approval.
Bad news for Eisendrath, 62% approval amongst Democrats—that’s much better than Bob Holden was doing in Missouri when Claire McCaskill beat him. That isn’t necessarily good news for Blagojevich in the general, but it is something to build upon. His independent numbers are in the crapper with 31% approval. Partisan break down is Republican 25%, Democrat 43%, Independent 31%.
A bit low on the Republicans, though with the serious problems the party has, regular Republican voters might be claiming independent status.
What is fascinating to me is the comparison to Michigan–Michigan is less blue than Illinois, but Granholm has been pretty consistently around Blagojevich’s numbers for the last several months. Interestingly, she is considered a fairly safe bet for reelection even with crappy approval ratings. Some of that is she’s probably facing a bad Republican candidate, but the parallels are interesting for those who claim Blagojevich is toast.
I have many, many criticisms of the current Governor, his situation isn’t as dire as many predict. Certainly Topinka offers a particular challenge to him both on gender and choice. However, the rest of the Republican field is weak in a general election contest.
His numbers do make him vulnerable because they are bad for a sitting Governor, but the similar tracking with Michigan has to make one wonder if the larger political and economic climate in states that had heavy manufacturing as an important part of the economy aren’t facing similar challenges. While those of us who follow politics obsessively tend to try and pinpoint moves to particular instances, most voters don’t follow that closely what the Governor does from day to day. He is vulnerable, but his situation isn’t as dire as many like to think.
It’s on-line so who knows how accurate it is, though they do try to sample underrepresented groups.
Blagojevich: 39.7
Topinka: 38.7
+/- 2.9%
Blagojevich: 45.7%
Brady: 36.1%
I assume the Oberweis numbers are in the full pdf which I don’t have–if you do, I’d appreciate it if you could pass it along.
Jeff Berkowitz has Cegelis and Scott on Public Affairs Cinema
Via Rich
Roskam raised $380,000. That’ll be a fun report to go through.
Hiram says Lindy Scott is about to pull in $103,000 which is a good quarter with 20% spent at $80,000 on hand–good numbers assuming they are accurate along with interesting news about Lindy’s ground operation. At a minimum he beats expectations and will be taken seriously–the ground operation might be the thing to keep your eye on.
Duckworth makes Newsweek and gets the AFL-CIO endorsement.
My sense is Unite to Win might be more important in the District, but those on the ground can correct me. Either way it is a big endorsement.
Christine gets the Progressive Democrats of America Endorsement and a nice personal endorsement from Marci Kaptur of Ohio.
John Laesch running in IL-14 just got an endorsement as well.
While most of his cowboy antics of George drive me crazy, the appropriate response to an offer of a truce from bin Laden is
I got your truce right here buddy
He shouldn’t mistake opposition to Iraq as any sign that the vast majority of Americans don’t think him being dead would be a really good thing.
Oh, yeah, dead or alive…..
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