IL: WAA: Quinn (only) down 3

[Franzl]

I think (and hope) that Quinn is slightly favored to win, but it's really not time to celebrate yet.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Quinn eked it out over Brady last time because late deciders decided it was better to give Quinn a second chance than to take a chance with somebody who was arguably a tea partier. Rauner is definitely not a tea partier, and Quinn's had two terms to try to do what the people of Illinois want him to do - so there's no guarantee that late deciders will once again break for Quinn, and to be only at 41% in September is not a good thing for him either. Still Lean R, but I'll reevaluate if someone more reliable (IPSOS/PPP/Quinnipiac/Suffolk, etc.) shows a similar result.

[muon2]

Quinn's problem remains that 41% figure for support. Except for the Trib poll, he hasn't been above 43%, even in Dem polls. That means he needs a strong break of the undecided towards him in the last 6 six weeks, probably at least a two to one break, to overcome the deficit.

His other problem is the 6% showing for the Libertarian Grimm. Grimm isn't advertising, so there's a good chance that much of the support is a protest vote. Historically the third party candidates overpoll compared to their results in the election. Since Grimm isn't advertising, it's hard to see him holding that full 6%. Also third party polling is usually anti-incumbent, and that was true in the Gov's race four years ago, so if that vote slips off of Grimm, it would tend to add to Rauner more than Quinn.

Third parties got 8% in 2010, so I don't see why they couldn't get 6% in 2014. As for Quinn not being able to crack 41%, that was pretty much the same logic people used to write him off in 2010. In fact, in the final pre-election average in November he was only at 39%. And since there's still over a month left, there's plenty of time for the support of both candidates to increase.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/governor/il/illinois_governor_brady_vs_quinn-1361.html

Cohen spent a few million of his personal wealth on advertising his independent run for Gov in 2010, and that gave a number of voters a choice they had heard of when the negatives went up on Brady. That isn't happening this year for Grimm. It's possible that the negative ads by Quinn against Rauner drive voters to an unknown 3rd party candidate, but if that doesn't happen Quinn has a tougher hill to climb than last time out.

[Mr. Illini]

Frustrated Illinoisans throw their support behind a Republican to throw out the incumbent and then realize that they just threw their support behind a Republican.

Have we seen this before?

[Vega]

Frustrated Illinoisans throw their support behind a Republican to throw out the incumbent and then realize that they just threw their support behind a Republican.

Have we seen this before?

2010 rings a bell.

[muon2]

Frustrated Illinoisans Chicagoans throw their support behind a Republican to throw out the incumbent and then realize that they just threw their support behind a Republican, so they voted independent instead.

Have we seen this before?

If you take the polling and turnout estimates from 2010 and compare them to the returns, second thoughts about electing a Pub were primarily confined to Chicagoland. Downstate did not shift much at all, and the movement in Cook and the collar counties was towards Cohen - not to Quinn.

Consider the parallel races for US Sen and Gov in Cook:
US Senator
Giannoulias 899K, 64.3%
Kirk 442K, 31.6%
Jones (Green), 35K, 2.5%
Labno (Lib), 22K, 1.5%

Governor
Quinn, 901K, 64.4%
Brady, 400K, 28.6%
Whitney (Green), 35K, 2.5%
Green (Lib), 11K, 0.8%
Cohen (Ind), 52K, 3.8%

It's pretty clear that there is almost no difference between Quinn and Giannoulias in Cook. The Green Party candidates votes were also almost identical in the two races. However, when Cohen appears in the Gov race, his vote is consistent with voters moving mostly from Brady and a little from the Libertarian. Except for Kirk's home county of Lake, the collars were similar with Quinn generally gaining less than a percent compared to Giannoulias, but Brady losing 3% to Cohen.

In the 2010 Senate race, 4% of the voters cast ballots for third party candidates. As I noted before, what Quinn needs is to do is move more voters into that category from Rauner and then turn out his base in Cook to keep the 500K vote difference he will need to offset the rest of the state. The 2010 data shows that it was easier for voters to move to a candidate that spent 3M$ on positive advertising than to an unknown Libertarian.