Gov. Pat Quinn is facing an increasingly uphill battle against Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner, a new We Ask America poll shows.
Rauner is now sitting on a 14-point lead in the poll that was conducted July 28, which is up from his 10-point lead he had in a June poll. Rauner’s boost can be attributed to his economic plan, which includes a state income tax reduction. A poll showed while people don’t believe Illinois can afford this plan, a majority say it makes them more likely to vote for him.
Reboot Illinois, which was founded by hedge fund manager Anne Dias Griffin, commissioned the poll by We Ask America, an independent polling subsidiary of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association.
Overall, if the election were held today, Rauner would pull in 47 percent of the vote, compared to Quinn’s 33 percent, according to the poll. Twenty percent said they’re still undecided.
In the June poll, Quinn had 37 percent of the vote.
“The results show an incremental increase for Rauner after the poll participants heard a short explanation of the two plans,” said Gregg Durham, chief operating officer of We Ask America. “If — as most of us suspect — this race tightens up dramatically, that type of slight edge could pay big dividends for Mr. Rauner as Election Day nears.”
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While Quinn is winning Chicago, Rauner has the edge everywhere else:
A recent poll from McKeon & Associates showed Rauner getting 40 percent of the vote, compared to Quinn’s 34, with 26 percent undecided.
On Tuesday, Quinn released a new 60-second television commercial titled “Comeback,” marking his first sustained entry into what figures to be a long and brutal television ad war. He also fired back, saying the poll is ‘phony-baloney.’
The poll was conducted among 1,087 likely Illinois voters and has a margin of error of +/-2.97 percentage points.
Via Reboot Illinois
