From the print edition:
By Robert Becker and Hal Dardick
Tribune reporters
Chicago Ald. Toni Preckwinkle has surged to a significant lead in the
Democratic primary for Cook County Board president as she has become
better known and liked among suburban voters, a Tribune/WGN-TV poll
shows.
Board President Todd Stroger fell to last place among the four
candidates, his support dropping to 11 percent from 14 percent six
weeks ago.
During that time, Preckwinkle supplanted Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy
Brown as the front-runner with the support of 36 percent of likely
Democratic voters, up from 20 percent, the poll found. Brown, who held
a lead last month built upon her name recognition, fell from 29 percent
to 24 percent.
Metropolitan Water Reclamation District President Terrence O’Brien rose to 16 percent from 11 percent in the December poll.
The survey of 503 likely Democratic primary voters, conducted Jan.
16-20, found only 12 percent undecided in the contest, putting the onus
on Preckwinkle’s opponents to use the final days of the campaign to try
to take support away from her. The survey’s error margin was 4.4
percentage points.
Preckwinkle is airing TV ads promising to repeal the remainder of the
unpopular and controversial Cook County sales tax increase backed by
Stroger. She has seen her name recognition increase from about half of
the county’s likely suburban voters last month to three-quarters in the
new poll.
Democratic voters with a favorable impression of Preckwinkle have
doubled from 23 percent last month to 45 percent now. Her favorable
impression among white voters also doubled to 54 percent. Those factors
help explain why she has the support of 46 percent of white voters in
the contest.
O’Brien, the lone white candidate, has the backing of 25 percent of white voters.
Among black voters, Brown scored 36 percent support, Preckwinkle had 24 percent, Stroger had 23 percent and O’Brien 4 percent.
Preckwinkle, the former high school history teacher and current
five-term alderman whose ward includes the home of President Barack
Obama, has avoided injecting race into the campaign. Preckwinkle has
argued that the Feb. 2 primary is a political test among all Democrats,
not just African-Americans.
The poll showed Brown losing support among suburban county voters as
her opponents in recent weeks publicly questioned her practice of
accepting gifts, including cash, from employees.
Many of those gifts were presented to her at birthday parties that
doubled as fundraisers, organized by top-level employees, with
significant contributions from many of her 2,100 workers.
That issue arose before the campaign, but this week reports focused on
her practice of requiring employees to pay $2 or $3 a day to wear jeans
on some Fridays. She said the money goes to pay for employee
appreciation events and to make charitable donations, but she has yet
to produce records to document it.
About two-thirds of likely Democratic voters continued to disapprove of
Stroger’s job performance. His administration has been dogged by the
unpopular sales tax hike and hiring scandals.
On the campaign trail, Stroger blames the news media for his bad image.
He says he has done a good job of keeping the county financially sound
and the public health system intact during a deep recession.
That contention has been lost in the controversies over the
penny-on-the-dollar sales tax increase and his hiring of a troubled
steakhouse busboy for an executive post.
The tax increase spurred talk of secession among outlying suburbs and
prompted his old colleagues in the General Assembly to seek political
cover by making it easier to override the board president’s veto.
In his three years as president, Stroger never escaped the perception
that clout rather than merit installed him in the office. A wide array
of establishment Democrats backed him to replace his then-ailing
father, John, in the November 2006 election.
Along the way, however, Stroger has lost much of that support. And Stroger’s opponents have all taken aim at his leadership.
O’Brien has focused his campaign on repealing the sales tax increase,
but has been criticized for raising the water district’s annual
property taxes by more than 30 percent during his decade-plus tenure as
president.
Despite the campaign’s focus on the tax issue, the poll found that only
54 percent of voters favor a repeal of the remaining half-percent
increase in the sales tax. Nearly a third oppose repeal.
O’Brien has pledged to immediately roll back the remaining half cent of
the sales tax increase, while Brown and Preckwinkle have promised to do
so over time.
Only Preckwinkle has unconditionally backed making permanent the
independent board overseeing the county’s vast public health system.
Preckwinkle’s opponents are criticizing her for decade-old campaign donations from convicted political fixer Antoin "Tony" Rezko.
Preckwinkle has said that she knew Rezko during the 1990s when he was
developing affordable housing in her 4th Ward. Preckwinkle said their
relationship soured around 2000 after she confronted him about problems
at his developments.