{"id":217418,"date":"2010-01-22T21:55:57","date_gmt":"2010-01-23T02:55:57","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef01287702db0c970c"},"modified":"2010-01-22T21:56:08","modified_gmt":"2010-01-23T02:56:08","slug":"quinn-hynes-in-tight-race-mckenna-ryan-dillard-atop-republican-governor-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/217418","title":{"rendered":"Quinn, Hynes in tight race; McKenna, Ryan, Dillard atop Republican governor field"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Sunday’s print edition<\/em>:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Quinn, Hynes in Democratic dead heat for governor primary <\/h2>\n

McKenna, Ryan, Dillard lead pack of Republicans<\/h3>\n

By Rick Pearson<\/p>\n

Tribune reporter<\/p>\n

The Democratic governor primary is a toss-up between Gov. Pat Quinn and
\nComptroller Dan Hynes as controversy over an inmate early release program and an
\nimploding state budget cut into the governor’s once-sizable advantage, a
\nTribune\/WGN-TV poll has found.<\/p>\n

On the Republican side, three candidates are in a tight battle ahead of the
\nFeb. 2 primary. Former state GOP Chairman Andy McKenna, former Illinois Attorney
\nGeneral Jim Ryan and state Sen. Kirk Dillard lead the field, but none reached 20
\npercent, according to the new poll.<\/p>\n

The results show that with an early primary election coming little more than
\na month after the new year, candidates who placed a premium on extensive and
\nexpensive TV advertising are seeing dividends as prospective voters began tuning
\nin to the upcoming election.\n<\/p>\n

Each of the surveys, conducted Jan. 16-20, also indicate that results for
\nthis primary could depend on last-minute voter appeals through TV, radio and
\ncampaign get-out-the-vote efforts.<\/p>\n

Among Democrats, Quinn’s better than 2-to-1 lead over Hynes in a Tribune
\nsurvey six weeks ago has evaporated amid concerns about the unelected
\nincumbent’s ability to handle the job. The poll of 601 likely Democratic voters
\nshowed Quinn with 44 percent and Hynes with 40 percent \u2014 within the survey’s 4
\npercentage point error margin. Thirteen percent of the voters were
\nundecided.<\/p>\n

Hynes’ surge was dramatic, given the command Quinn held in early December. At
\nthat point, Quinn’s job approval rating was 58 percent, 46 percent supported his
\nefforts to repair the state budget and he held a 49-23 advantage over Hynes, the
\nthree-term state comptroller.<\/p>\n

Since then, Hynes has hammered Quinn with TV ads criticizing the governor for
\nreleasing inmates only days after their arrival at state prisons to save money.
\nDozens of those released early are back in prison for alleged crimes. Quinn
\nultimately called the program a "mistake" and blamed it on his prisons director,
\nMichael P. Randle, who he kept on the job.<\/p>\n

Two-thirds of Democratic voters polled said the early release of inmates to
\nsave money was wrong, including 71 percent of Hynes supporters and 59 percent of
\nthose backing Quinn.<\/p>\n

Quinn also has been stung by the woeful state budget, with overdue bills to
\nstate service providers growing to more than $5 billion. On TV, both Hynes and
\nsome Republicans have ripped Quinn for proposing a major income tax increase
\nthat would affect the middle class. Quinn has supported various tax hike plans,
\nsome that had tax breaks for those with lower incomes and some that did not.
\nHynes backs a plan requiring voters to approve a state constitutional amendment
\nto impose a higher tax rate on those who make the most.<\/p>\n

Democratic voters are split at 44 percent on whether a tax increase is
\nnecessary to help cover the state’s budget deficit. Among Quinn supporters, 57
\npercent said they believed a tax hike is needed while 34 percent said it’s
\nunnecessary. Those numbers are virtually reversed among Hynes supporters, with a
\nmajority believing a tax increase isn’t necessary.<\/p>\n

All told, Quinn’s job approval rating has slumped to 43 percent \u2014 below the
\n50 percent mark that incumbents seek at election time. At the same time, the
\nnumber of Democratic voters who disapprove of how Quinn has handled the job has
\nclimbed from 18 percent to 31 percent.<\/p>\n

Despite Hynes’ heavy dose of attack advertising, he still maintained a
\nfavorability rating of 41 percent of Democratic voters, while only 13 percent
\nviewed him unfavorably. Even after getting into a highly publicized battle with
\nQuinn and refusing to sign off on more state borrowing, half the voters approve
\nof the comptroller’s job performance, as they did last month.<\/p>\n

In recent days, Quinn has made efforts to gain support among African-American
\nvoters, criticizing Hynes over failing to discover the Burr Oak cemetery scandal
\nand even for criticizing Barack Obama when Hynes was running against him in the
\n2004 U.S. Senate primary. Hynes struck back last week with an ad featuring the
\nlate Mayor Harold Washington saying he made a mistake in hiring Quinn as city
\nbudget director.<\/p>\n

Mirroring the overall results, 44 percent of black voters in the survey
\nfavored Quinn and 40 percent backed Hynes. But only 36 percent of
\nAfrican-American voters said they approved of the job Quinn was doing as
\ngovernor.<\/p>\n

In addition to Hynes’ attack ads, Quinn also has been targeted by McKenna,
\nthe most prolific advertiser on the Republican side. McKenna’s ad blitz helped
\nhim achieve support from 19 percent of Republican voters compared to 18 percent
\nfor Elmhurst’s Ryan and 14 percent for Dillard, of Hinsdale.<\/p>\n

Another 9 percent backed state Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington, while Hinsdale
\ntransparency advocate Adam Andrzejewski had 7 percent and Chicago political
\npundit Dan Proft had 6 percent. Another 17 percent were undecided in the survey
\nof 592 likely Republican primary voters.<\/p>\n

DuPage County Board Chairman Bob Schillerstrom of Naperville, who had 2
\npercent support in the survey, dropped out of the race Friday and announced he’s
\nbacking Ryan.<\/p>\n

McKenna and Ryan are strongest in Chicago and the suburbs, where each has
\nsupport from more than one in five voters surveyed. Dillard has the backing of
\n22 percent of downstate voters, but lags in his home base.<\/p>\n

Weeks ago, Ryan, the unsuccessful 2002 Republican nominee against disgraced
\nformer Gov. Rod Blagojevich, was the frontrunner in the contest with 26 percent
\nsupport, largely from being the most well-known.<\/p>\n

Ryan has denied he was coasting on his lead, but he hasn’t been the most
\nvisible campaigner. Still, his familiarity among voters has kept his candidacy
\nviable against more moneyed opponents. McKenna, meanwhile, has increased his
\nname recognition among GOP voters to 84 percent from 67 percent in the previous
\nsurvey.<\/p>\n

Dillard, whose money woes led him to seek campaign cash from controversial
\nconservative activist Jack Roeser, made the most headway in name recognition. He
\nmoved from being known by little more than half of GOP voters to 81 percent of
\nthem. Dillard, who saw his support increase slightly from 9 percent in the last
\nsurvey, also is being backed by the Illinois Education Association, a powerful
\nteachers union that has sought a tax increase to bolster funding for schools and
\npensions.<\/p>\n

More than 85 percent of Republican voters still believe that opposition to a
\ntax increase is important in their selection of a candidate. All of the
\ncontenders have said they do not support higher taxes to repair the state’s
\nbudget, but McKenna has used his ads to target Ryan and Dillard as refusing to
\nrule out a tax increase.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Sunday’s print edition: Quinn, Hynes in Democratic dead heat for governor primary McKenna, Ryan, Dillard lead pack of Republicans By Rick Pearson Tribune reporter 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3992,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3992"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}