The Democratic governor primary is a toss-up between Gov. Pat Quinn and Comptroller Dan Hynes as controversy over an inmate early release program and an imploding state budget cut into the governor’s once-sizable advantage, a Tribune/WGN-TV poll has found.
On the Republican side, three candidates are in a tight battle ahead of the Feb. 2 primary. Former state GOP Chairman Andy McKenna, former Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan and state Sen.
Kirk Dillard lead the field, but none reached 20 percent, according to the new poll.
The results show that with an early primary election coming little more than a month after the new year, candidates who placed a premium on extensive and expensive TV advertising are seeing dividends as prospective voters began tuning in to the upcoming election.
Each of the surveys, conducted Jan. 16-20, also indicate that results for this primary could depend on last-minute voter appeals through TV, radio and campaign get-out-the-vote efforts.
Among Democrats, Quinn’s better than 2-to-1 lead over Hynes in a Tribune survey six weeks ago has evaporated amid concerns about the unelected incumbent’s ability to handle the job.
The poll of 601 likely Democratic voters showed Quinn with 44 percent and Hynes with 40 percent — within the survey’s 4 percentage point error margin. Thirteen percent of the voters were undecided.
Hynes’ surge was dramatic, given the command Quinn held in early December. At that point, Quinn’s job approval rating was 58 percent, 46 percent supported his efforts to repair the state budget and he held a 49-23 advantage over Hynes, the three-term state comptroller.
Since then, Hynes has hammered Quinn with TV ads criticizing the governor for releasing inmates only days after their arrival at state prisons to save money.
Dozens of those released early are back in prison for alleged crimes. Quinn ultimately called the program a “mistake” and blamed it on his prisons director, Michael P. Randle, who he kept on the job.
Two-thirds of Democratic voters polled said the early release of inmates to save money was wrong, including 71 percent of Hynes supporters and 59 percent of those backing Quinn.
Quinn also has been stung by the woeful state budget, with overdue bills to state service providers growing to more than $5 billion. On TV, both Hynes and some Republicans have ripped Quinn for proposing a major income tax increase that would affect the middle class.
Quinn has supported various tax hike plans, some that had tax breaks for those with lower incomes and some that did not. Hynes backs a plan requiring voters to approve a state constitutional amendment to impose a higher tax rate on those who make the most.
Democratic voters are split at 44 percent on whether a tax increase is necessary to help cover the state’s budget deficit. Among Quinn supporters, 57 percent said they believed a tax hike is needed while 34 percent said it’s unnecessary.
Those numbers are virtually reversed among Hynes supporters, with a majority believing a tax increase isn’t necessary.
All told, Quinn’s job approval rating has slumped to 43 percent — below the 50 percent mark that incumbents seek at election time. At the same time, the number of Democratic voters who disapprove of how Quinn has handled the job has climbed from 18 percent to 31 percent.
Despite Hynes’ heavy dose of attack advertising, he still maintained a favorability rating of 41 percent of Democratic voters, while only 13 percent viewed him unfavorably.
Even after getting into a highly publicized battle with Quinn and refusing to sign off on more state borrowing, half the voters approve of the comptroller’s job performance, as they did last month.
In recent days, Quinn has made efforts to gain support among African-American voters, criticizing Hynes over failing to discover the Burr Oak cemetery scandal and even for criticizing Barack Obama when Hynes was running against him in the 2004 U.S. Senate primary.
Hynes struck back last week with an ad featuring the late Mayor Harold Washington saying he made a mistake in hiring Quinn as city budget director.
Mirroring the overall results, 44 percent of black voters in the survey favored Quinn and 40 percent backed Hynes. But only 36 percent of African-American voters said they approved of the job Quinn was doing as governor.
In addition to Hynes’ attack ads, Quinn also has been targeted by McKenna, the most prolific advertiser on the Republican side. McKenna’s ad blitz helped him achieve support from 19 percent of Republican voters compared to 18 percent for Elmhurst’s Ryan and 14 percent for Dillard, of Hinsdale.
Another 9 percent backed state Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington, while Hinsdale transparency advocate Adam Andrzejewski had 7 percent and Chicago political pundit Dan Proft had 6 percent. Another 17 percent were undecided in the survey of 592 likely Republican primary voters.
DuPage County Board Chairman Bob Schillerstrom of Naperville, who had 2 percent support in the survey, dropped out of the race Friday and announced he’s backing Ryan.
McKenna and Ryan are strongest in Chicago and the suburbs, where each has support from more than one in five voters surveyed. Dillard has the backing of 22 percent of downstate voters, but lags in his home base.
Weeks ago, Ryan, the unsuccessful 2002 Republican nominee against disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, was the frontrunner in the contest with 26 percent support, largely from being the most well-known.
Ryan has denied he was coasting on his lead, but he hasn’t been the most visible campaigner. Still, his familiarity among voters has kept his candidacy viable against more moneyed opponents.
McKenna, meanwhile, has increased his name recognition among GOP voters to 84 percent from 67 percent in the previous survey.
Dillard, whose money woes led him to seek campaign cash from controversial conservative activist Jack Roeser, made the most headway in name recognition. He moved from being known by little more than half of GOP voters to 81 percent of them.
Dillard, who saw his support increase slightly from 9 percent in the last survey, also is being backed by the Illinois Education Association, a powerful teachers union that has sought a tax increase to bolster funding for schools and pensions.
More than 85 percent of Republican voters still believe that opposition to a tax increase is important in their selection of a candidate. All of the contenders have said they do not support higher taxes to repair the state’s budget, but McKenna has used his ads to target Ryan and Dillard as refusing to rule out a tax increase.
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