Dem Poll: Quinn pulls ahead of Rauner in gov race for first time

A new poll commissioned by the Democratic Governors Association shows Gov. Pat Quinn for the first time pulling ahead of his Republican opponent Bruce Rauner by 3 percentage points.

It is the first time since 2013 that a poll that’s been made publicly available shows Quinn leading Rauner.

Even an August internal Quinn poll showed the governor one point behind Rauner. Since the primary, Rauner has enjoyed a consistent lead that moved in and out of double-digits. Last week, Reboot Illinois published a We Ask America poll showing Rauner with a 9-point lead.

The new Democratic poll shows 5 percent of those queried chose Libertarian Chad Grimm. Republicans had unsuccessfully sought to boot Libertarians from the ballot. Democrats, meanwhile, were successful in blocking a Green Party candidate.

A memo about the internal poll, conducted by the Global Strategy Group, claims Rauner’s popularity has taken a plunge.

“As he has become better known, Rauner’s negative ratings have increased by 20 points among Democrats (16% fav/43% unfav to 9% fav/63% unfav) and by 13 among Independents (35% fav/21% unfav to 35% fav/34% unfav) with no increase in his positive ratings,” according to the memo.

The poll, obtained by Early & Often, was a telephone survey of 605 likely Nov. 2014 Illinois voters. It was conducted Sept. 4-7 and had a margin of error is +/- 4.0 percentage points. Cross-tabs were not made available.

“Quinn has strong odds of holding on to the seat as long as he can consolidate his party’s voters,” the memo states.

Here’s more from the memo:

Here’s an overview of polls in a Rauner-Quinn matchup.