Illinois Voters, Unhappy With Candidates, Show Few Signs of Committing

We haven’t written as much about Illinois as some other Senate contests — but it may be taking on an increasingly important role as some other races that had once looked to be competitive, like Connecticut and Missouri, now show a clearer advantage for one or another party.

The race in Illinois has long been within the margin of error in most polls; our forecasting model last week characterized it as a near-tie, with the Republican Mark Kirk projected to win by 0.4 points over Democrat Alexi Giannoulias.

What’s unusual about Illinois is the number of voters committed to minor-party candidates — like the Green Party’s nominee, LeAlan Jones, and the Libertarian, Mike Labno — or who haven’t committed to a candidate at all yet. Collectively, the third-party candidates have held between 5 and 11 percent of the vote in recent polls, while about 10 to 15 percent of voters remain undecided.

Such a circumstance is quite unusual. I searched our database of Senate race polls and came up with only four examples since 1998 in which neither major-party candidate had more than 42 percent of the vote in the polling average with a month to go in the campaign:

Sara you are exactly right. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of far left liberal Republicans getting to masquerade as “Moderates” when they are no such thing. They like their leftist counterparts want radical change. They say they don’t care about social issues but in truth they do care about social issues and fiscal issues very much they just are masters of deception misleading the public into thinking they are harmless which they do by avoiding debate and talking around where they really stand on issues. I thought we had learned this year. Some of the comments and the behavior of the conservative media just proves they are just second string to the mainstream media. They are only brave when it is easy and when it is not they are absent except for a few like Mark Levin who have went out on the limb for what he believed in bringing on his show conservative candidates even long shot ones. What I find really sad are races like this one in Illinois. There is such a great opportunity for those like us and the Tea Party. If a conservative libertarian can’t win with 3 liberals splitting the vote in Illinois then we should give up on the state. I feel the same about the Massachusetts Governors race. Its another one where a big govt William Weld liberal insider was trotted out in Charlie Baker. He even has a gay activist on his ticket who is on the record saying “there is no difference between the Republican and Democrat party in Massachusetts” or something to that effect. I support Tim Cahill in that race because he is an honest man and he was ahead of Baker till the RGA smeared him. No I’m not an R-bot. There is no place in the a liberty loving Republican party that respects founding principles for Mark Kirks and Charlie Bakers. True conservatism is on the rise because we are not compromising. We have a historic election coming up on Nov 2nd and in so many ways we are squandering a good portion of our blessings because of tired old Republican Machiavellian crap and those of us who thinks that in the end we are going to be able to trust the GOP to do the right thing after Nov 2nd are naive but I’m sure the same ones who defend Mark Kirk will be there in line to get their butt kissing in. Then they will be lining up behind someone like Mitt Romney while running whispering campaigns against conservatives because we know “they just can’t win”.

54% of the electorate is self identified conservatives up from 40%. Moderate vote share is shrinking.
http://weaselzippers.us/2010/10/08/gallup-54-of-likely-voters-are-self-identified-conservatives-only-18-consider-themselves-lobotomized-obamabots/

I was shocked to see someone who supposedly is a rock ribbed Catholic say this. It would seem like the last thing any serious Christian would want, Catholic or otherwise, and VERY uncharacteristic of Catholics in particular. I’m not going to mention who.

Given this is Illinois and one seriously messed up state due to the damage all the progressives have done both politically and in the Church(s) (Catholic and otherwise ...) I probably wouldn't be surprised at all.

I was born, raised, confirmed and married in the Catholic Church. My wife and I left in the early 90's due to the CINO's and the priest sex abuse scandals.

My qualms with the Catholic Church are limited to the actions around the sex abuse scandals. Theologically speaking I'm in firm agreement with the Church, and one either subscribes to and lives by the tenants of the Church or one stops calling themselves a Catholic. We knew more CINO's than authentic Catholics and that was a major driver of our leaving the church ... the "Cafeteria Catholics."

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