Hynes’ camp made public a poll last week that shows their candidate in the lead. Hynes had support from 26 percent of likely Democratic primary voters. Other totals were 15 percent for MARIA PAPPAS, the Cook County treasurer, who has not yet announced a bid; 12 percent for Obama; 4 percent for GERY CHICO, 3 percent for BLAIR HULL, 1 percent for JOYCE WASHINGTON and 1 percent for NANCY SKINNER. Global Strategy Group Inc. of New York took that poll of 1,000 likely Democratic primary voters Aug. 14-20 – more than a month ago. Hynes spokeswoman CHRIS MATHER said the campaign decided to let Hynes formally launch his campaign before releasing the poll numbers. The numbers include those leaning to a candidate – amounting to 4 percentage points for Hynes, 1 for Obama and 2 for Pappas.
Another poll commissioned by Fox News and reported Thursday in Chicago is more recent. The poll of 400 Democrats and 400 Republicans done by KRC Communications Research of Newton, Mass., from Monday through Wednesday, found 50 percent of Democrats undecided, with 10 percent for Hynes, 9 percent for Hull, 8 percent for Obama, 7 percent for Chico and 5 percent for Washington.
2 key points. First, don’t trust polls by the candidate too much. Second, the larger the sample size the better. I have to wonder if the Fox News poll doesn’t suffer from only having 400 respondents. All of the major candidates are within the margin of error anyway, but given Hynes has some name recognition before starting, he should be higher than 9 percent. IOW, don’t always trust media polls either.
The big problem is that this early in a race, most voters aren’t paying attention and they want to give an answer to pollsters. The important thing is that when they do that, if things don’t intervene to create interest, that might be how they vote too.
The article also contains some interesting Rauschenberger details concerning his views on Democrats in the Lege and his background.