Talk Elections

Better link coming. (https://twitter.com/ForecasterEnten/status/517002657467469827)

Quinn (D)- 44%
Raunder (R)- 42%


The People's Pat continues on his way to reelection!

Quinn will pull this out.

The great state of Illinois is ready to send their champion back to Springfield!

This will wrestle IL into the Quinn-column for the first time today on the RCP average.

Goddamn. That's beautiful.

I think I'm going to vomit . then again, Rassy

This has been happening for a month. We Ask America showed Quinn gaining and then The Trib put out that doubke-digit lead for Quinn a few weeks ago. It was over then. I suppose that the rising GOP wave might sweep Rauner in. Who knows?

I wanted Brady to get another shot.

I'm honored to be the one to post this.

()

I don't know if the affection here for Quinn is sarcastic, but if the people of Illinois (or the people of Chicago more specifically) are stupid enough to re elect this corrupt dirtbag, they deserve whatever crap they get.

I'd say >Rassy, but the trajectory of this race is too real. It's so unfortunate to see a brave hero like Bruce Rauner lose to the weakling Governor.

Maybe the people of Illinois finally realized that no matter who the person is or which party they are, they will always have a corrupt dirtbag as governor. So D state = D victory.

No matter who wins this, the people of Illinois will get the governor they deserve.

Considering that this poll doesn't even account for The Mighty Quinn's 98%-2% advantage among dead people, I think it's safe to say it's over.

LOL. Definitely not over, but I don't think we can call this Leans R anymore.

Rauner has been tied to Romney outsourcing jobs. Once again, the GOP surge has crested as voters start paying aytention, and should be in good shape in these close races.

Ugh, the catastrophe of a governor will win I guess if that's what Illinois wants...

New Poll: Illinois Governor by Rasmussen on 2014-09-25 (https://uselectionatlas.org/POLLS/GOVERNOR/2014/polls.php?action=indpoll&id=1720140925016)

Summary: D: 44%, R: 42%, I: 6%, U: 8%

Poll Source URL: Full Poll Details (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2014/illinois/election_2014_illinois_governor)

Wow, it's actually happening. Not that a Quinn comeback is particularly surprising considering the 2010 race, but if it did come I wouldn't have expected it to be this early.

OC has been vindicated. We can only hope your clairvoyance carries through to November.

Bruce Rauner? More like Bruce GONER!

I'm pretty sure Quinn will win by 2-4 points in November. It's amazing how he's closed and surpassed Rauner.

Looking at 2010 polling, Quinn's now in a stronger position now than he was at this point then. Which is, hilarious.

Always thought he'd win.

Always been pessimistic about Rauner's chances. Didn't think that the people of Illinois would have the sense to kick Quinn.

It's not entirely over for Rauner yet, but at this point it's hard for me to see him winning.

Considering the huge number of undecideds, as well as the polls being everywhere throughout this cycle, it's still a dead heat. Which is sad, because Quinn has a spectacular record of failure and Rauner isn't anything like the caricature Team Quinn has painted him as.

Hopefully Rauner can still pull it off, but this may be one of the last races called after the polls close.

Good to see the heartless businessman getting shown the door.

I'll take it if it means we can actually have a victory in 2018 after four more years of this catastrophe, and force a neutral (or compromise) congressional redistricting map.

You'll have to wrest the governor's mansion from Pat Quinn's cold, dead hands.

I'm hopeful some weaker Democrat can do it for us in the primary.

Or Quinn could just retire...

This is Illinois if quinn is ever leaving office it will be in handcuffs.

Or he gets primaried. 

In 2010, Quinn didn't lead in a single poll from the summer on.  Then, the large IL "coming home" effect was the difference.  This year, I wouldn't be surprised if he won the race going away at this point by >5 pts.

It was the Ditka ad, wasn't it?

Beautiful :D

That is literally the worst ad I've seen all cycle, and it made him seem like a snake (I mean, we can give in to special interests, right?) who needed Ditka to set him straight.

The only thing better than seeing Rauner going down in flames is reading the out-of-state Republican whining on here.

Quinn isn't going to win this; Rauner is going to lose this. It's not a "mistake" or a "blunder" by the people of Illinois. They know what they want, and it isn't lower taxes on the rich, a lower minimum wage, gutted school funding, attacks on collective bargaining, or attacks on social programs.

They, myself included, will take the status quo over that nonsense.

The only reason he was leading at all was protest.

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Thank you oh gracious voice of Illinois ::)

They've spoken loudly through their voting for the last several decades. I'm just pointing out no one should really give a s**t about how bad someone from Oklahoma or New Mexico or anywhere else feels for what the people of Illinois have done to themselves.

If Illinois is so stupid to elect Quinn again, I have no sympathy for them. In other hyper partisan states (think Tennessee, Kansas, Massachusetts), they at least try the other party's way of doing things when a governor/governor candidate from their preferred party sucks. In Illinois, there are a majority of single issue voters who vote for only the D next to the name, provided the last name of the candidate isn't Giannoulias.

People in Illinois just need to look to neighboring states to see what Republican "governance" leads to. They don't want their schools to be underfunded, their rich to be given massive tax cuts, their abortion rights to be taken away, their poor and young to be disenfranchised, their medicaid taken away, or their unions to be destroyed.

So if protecting education funding, unions, and social programs are so important, why would they vote for Quinn??

And to stick it to the rich, you support raising taxes on everyone during bad economic times?

I don't really know what you're talking about. Quinn has been very strongly in support of education and social program funding. He signed pension reform that was far more moderate than what Rauner favors.

And no, I support extending the tax increase on everyone and adding the 3% surcharge to millionaires that has been proposed. Our taxes here in Illinois, despite RNC's narrative, are actually below what surrounding states charge, especially on the wealthy, as we have no progressive income tax.

You do know that Quinn cut education spending by $600 million and child welfare spending by $85 million, right? And that he's closed 57 state facilities, including halfway houses, mental health centers, and disability centers? And that he wants to take inmates from partially-empty prisons and send them to already-overcrowded ones (instead of vice-versa?)? And that he approved budgets (such as the 2012 & 2013 budgets) that cut spending for infrastructure and environmental projects to cover the budget deficits? Rauner wants to increase education spending by $6 billion over the next few years, and restore spending on infrastructure and environmental programs.

And the pension reform being "moderate" is the problem. The liability was $83 billion in 2011 and is now $100 billion. It keeps growing and growing. The 2011 hike was specifically meant to take care of it, but it didn't. Though I don't like what Walker or Kasich did to unions, this is one case where the public sector unions are going to have to take some cuts. All Rauner really has proposed was letting workers keep what they've earned and moving everyone else to 401(k)s.

And either way, Quinn froze pay for low-level workers while higher-ups kept taking their big salaries, not to mention the patronage thing going on right now. Quinn may say he supports education/social programs and Rauner is an evil rich dude, but Quinn actually has a record that the D avatars on here would blast a Republican for actually doing. Even the unions give Quinn crap for freezing their salaries and making tiny cuts to the pensions.


Why the hell would you support raising taxes on everyone? That's hundreds, if not thousands of dollars more you're taking out of the paychecks of everyone (including poor, working class, and middle class people) to fund soaring pensions for a few. If you want a progressive tax system, that's cool, I support that, but I don't get why you would want to make life even more expensive for people who would feel the most pain just because like 2 states around you have somewhat higher tax burdens. It doesn't make the tax code much more progressive at all. The rich will still be rich after the hike with their McMansions, Gold Coast flats, and BMWs, but for regular people who make less than $100K a year you've just taken more money out of their hands to throw at the pensions.

Quinn says he's fiscally responsible and wants "serious reform", only to deliver half-baked reforms that don't accomplish anything other than cutting needed programs to protect his dear unions. Rauner at least would have a Dem legislature to check him (and vice versa), so it's not like he can Walker the state. Yeah, Rauner needs to be more specific, but I don't see why the Forum Democrats are so blindly defending Quinn after being such a horrific Governor.

This couldn't be farther from the truth; Blago cut Quinn out of his administration totally. The two were never fond of each other.

How big of a budget gap do you want Illinois to have? Quinn's cuts were modest proposals to reduce the deficits we are running. Then you also oppose the tax increase? Where is all this money coming from? Rauner's pleas to increase spending are pure ploys for votes from Democrats. His education funding would be misallocated in favor of alternatives to public education and coupled with his conservative tax policies would wreak havoc on the budget.


Empty rhetoric is empty. All we would be doing is bringing up the tax burden to about what is typical for the Midwest in order to close to budget gap. Bringing up the flat rate and surcharging the rich's rate would make for a fairer and more soluble system.

Always good to see Republicans losing.

Spending is a huge part of the problem here. It's increased 25.6% since 2009, while inflation over those 5 years totaled 9.1% for comparison. Yes, Illinois' tax codes are outdated and need to be reformed, and the Great Recession took a huge bite out of tax revenue, but you can't ignore the spending side of this. The 2015 budget passed by the legislature keeps increasing spending even though the tax hikes haven't been made permanent yet. If Quinn gets re-elected again, I wouldn't be surprised if an inverse "starve the beast" policy emerges: increase spending constantly to justify higher taxes.

And if we're talking education spending and other states, Indiana devotes far more of its budget to elementary, secondary, and higher education than Illinois does. Not all charter schools are crappy, for profit hellholes like the ones you hear about in the news, and not all public schools are sacred untouchable things that just need more money thrown at them to succeed. Education reform is a complex, case-by-case slog and Quinn has even endorsed charter schools, opening several himself.


Of course it sounds empty to someone who identifies themselves as a young, rich, white, liberal elitist. Do you have a job? Do you and your family depend heavily on said job? If not, you probably don't know the burden of taxes while struggling economically. Surcharging is a piss-poor way to make the system progressive. Illinois FairTax would be a much better way by introducing steeper brackets while relieving the working class of a lot of their burden, the middle and upper class of some of their burden, while increasing the tax burden of those making more than $150K (so not just millionaires, it encompasses more people).

And what numbers are you using for for other states' tax burdens? The most common ranking of Illinois is 5th highest in the nation, with only large coastal states leading it.

You're the one arguing for higher spending. You said Rauner would increase education and environmental spending. Where's the money? Quinn has implemented a dual approach - cutting where necessary and looking to realistically increase taxes. Rauner wants to do the opposite - hike spending but cut taxes. Who would be worse for the deficit?


Lol already diving into personal attacks? Nice. Yes, I have a job and so do both of my parents. In fact, I also live in Illinois, so these policies will impact me and my family, unlike yourself. As much as I want the progressive system passed, it is not near the support that it needs because of rich, north shore DLCers. The surcharge would effectively increase state revenue by requiring a simple 8% from the pockets of millionaires (while the rest pay 5%). Compare that to 9% top bracket in Iowa, 7.75% top bracket in Wisconsin, 8% top bracket in Minnesota, and 6% in Missouri and Kentucky. The only nearby state that isn't comparable is yours.

Meanwhile an expiration of the tax hike coupled with no surcharge would put us back to a flat rate of 3%, even below Indiana. That is not adequate and it would wreak havoc on the budget.

Rauner wants to control the growth of spending, by cutting the amount that goes into the pension fund and what is spent on general government costs. Illinois is noted for its highly complex and overlapping local government districts (partially funded by the state) and high levels of corruption and waste, so there is a lot of room to make some cuts in those areas and consolidate services to make up for the comparatively smaller increases in spending on environmental and education spending. Rauner wants to slow the growth of spending and let the tax revenue side catch up via economic recovery.

I'll agree that Rauner still has to be specific, and I do have some reservations about him, but Quinn has shown himself to not care about effective spending cuts (he's still in favor of the Illiana Tollway, for example) and would rather tax his way out of it. Neither Rauner nor Quinn will be able to balance the budget quickly, but the difference is that Rauner is morel likely slow the growth of spending in relation to taxes, while Quinn has proven himself to cut badly needed funds to pile spending into more wasteful and corrupt programs, and just raise taxes over and over again.


That wasn't a personal attack; I was asking you about your perspective, if you've actually know economic hardship, or how it has become more difficult to be middle class and seeing more of your money go to taxes while your income stagnates. You need to consider the effects of the tax increase on everyone.  You openly identified yourself as one:
Again, the average tax burden in Illinois is 5th highest in the nation. To improve Illinois' economy, you don't suck up more consumer spending with taxes, the majority of which comes from people who are middle-income. Raise the top bracket as high as you want, I don't care, but hitting consumer spending derived from the middle class in a consumer-driven economy is a terrible idea. The millionaires surcharge would only affect ~700K households, while a more broad, progressive income tax would extend it to near 1.5 million households who could also afford it, thus raising more money from a broader base. And Rauner wants to adjust the state tax code to adjust to the fact that Illinois' manufacturing base has declined since the 1970s, and the sales tax is high but narrow. If the tax increase sunsets, it will actually sunset to 3.75%, which would be higher than Indiana's 3.4%.

More empty rhetoric. Wouldn't we all like to cut "waste," but where is it? I haven't heard specifics beyond that buzzword. "General government costs," what does that mean? And our public workers deserve the reluctant and moderate cuts that have been implemented by the governor, not a war on public workers like the one waged one state north.


Not true, it is clearly Rauner who has been dishonest about the deficit issue. His plan to roll the income back all the way to 3% is forecast to cost the state $5-8 billion. Economists agree that economic growth would not come close to closing that gap. Putting that into perspective, the state's debt currently sits at $4 billion.

When Quinn took over it was $10 billion, but nah, he just doesn't care.


You keep calling the extension an increase, but it is simply making the rate permanent. There is no increase. Meanwhile, I call for a surcharge on millionaires, who in Rauner's plan would be paying the same percentage as the average family. You continue to paint Quinn's plan as anti-middle class, but he is simply recognizing the economic reality by asking the middle class to continue to pay the same rate and the rich to pay more. Bruce is the one who wants the flat tax, remember.

Is it too late for Republicans to force Rauner to withdraw and to put Kirk Dillard on the ballot instead?

So is "empty rhetoric" your go-to for every criticism of government spending?

How about the report published by Illinois Policy that found $354 million in blatant, completely unjustifiable special interest money? If you whip out your handy dandy calculator, you'll notice that adds up to more than half of the $600 million in education cuts. For example, $3.5 million was allocated to Decatur for things such as buying and renovating a gift shop and funding for a private office building, the Board of Higher Education spent $2.3 million on 23 teachers in its "Grow Your Own Teacher" program and only 17 when on to actually teach in high-need schools; Illinois has borrowed over $650 million from its special funds to cover its main budget, but borrowing from those funds will cost insane amounts of money to pay back over the future. More than $870 million of the education fund was given out without the need-based criteria usually used. $124 million was given to wealthy school districts that didn't need it. $2 billion in state Medicaid spending could be eliminated via EMRs and other efficiency measures, and $800 million could be saved by asking former state employees to contribute to their healthcare plans. Switching new pensioners to 401(k)s would save an additional $2 billion. Quinn's anti-violence campaign paid two people several million to "advise" on how to reduce crime, yet one of them ended up murdering the other. $2.1 million went directly to the husband of Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown. On state payrolls, janitors, plumbers, admin assistants, and even barbers are paid twice the amount in salaries the average private sector person earns. Ending automatic pay raises other than inflation adjustments and instituting reasonable merit bonuses, reducing very-high paid employees (like >$100K) salaries, and eliminating excess employees through consolidation would save $300 million. Changing and capping retiree benefits by coordinating local pensions and the salaries they give their employees would save a combined $1.1 billion.

Dude, you live in Illinois. Turn on the news and almost daily there are reports of wasteful spending and new corruption charges. Do a basic Google search or something. Read a newspaper. This list goes on and on. If you don't see the waste, it's probably because you don't want to see it.

I just listed $8.1 billion in wasteful spending and potential reforms, most of them nit-picky. You can come up with billions more by going deeper, I'm sure. Like the federal budget, Illinois' budget would not be that hard to balance if we actually wanted it to be balanced.

And Rauner's not going to have a GOP legislature to go Scott Walker on unions. That's political reality. He will check the legislature, which will in turn, check him. If he really is hard-right, just turn vote in more Democrats in 2016 and turn him out in 2018. The Governor is not a dictator.
With proper cuts, that gap can be closed when combined with the slowly recovering national and state economy. And do you mean the deficit is $4 billion? Because the Comptroller lists the state debt as $127 billion and the pension obligation is $99.6 billion (I think the $99.6 is part of the $127, but I'm not entirely sure)

The 2011 tax increase raised over $30 billion in the last 4 years (average of $7.5 billion/year), but he was only able to close the deficit by $6 billion? Major red flag that spending is also a problem. Ohio went from an $8 billion deficit to $1.5 billion surplus in the same time frame, so no, Quinn really doesn't care. His backing of more white elephant projects just proves it more. The next time another crisis comes along, he'll say we have to raise taxes, again, and break his promises, again, just like he has repeatedly over the past 5 years.
The increase was in 2011. I never called the extension itself the increase? But for a family making $50,000 per year, the 5% rate will cost them a total of $2,500 in additional taxes as opposed to the 3% rate. Rauner will not roll it back entirely to 3% in one year, but has proposed letting the sunset occur and gradually rolling the 3.75% back to 3%. If he goes by 0.25% per year starting in 2016, said family would see a total tax cut of $750 as compared to a permanent 3.75% rate.

How is raising taxes on everyone still a good idea when you can implement a more progressive structure that raises money from households making more than $150,000/year and not put such a heavy burden on everyone below? The steeper progressive tax rates would raise more money than just a millionaires surcharge by broadening the tax base.  

Aren't you in high school? You don't actually care about tax extensions, tax breaks, tax cuts or "wasteful spending".