CNS poll: Kerry has a big lead in Illinois But outside Chicago, state is Bush land

pjstar.com ^ | March 13, 2004 | DOUG FINKE

[KQQL]

SPRINGFIELD - Democrat John Kerry would handily defeat President George Bush in Illinois if the election were held today, a new Copley News Service poll shows.

That result may reflect the fact that fewer than half of Illinoisans believe Bush is doing an "excellent" or "good" job as president, according to the same poll. But Kerry also only is ahead of Bush because of huge support in Chicago, a Democratic stronghold.

Mason-Dixon Polling and Research Inc. of Washington, D.C., conducted the poll of 625 registered voters Monday through Wednesday. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Asked whom they would vote for if the election were held today, 47 percent said Kerry, while 39 percent said Bush. Two percent said they would vote for independent Ralph Nader, while 12 percent were undecided.

The results do not surprise Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon.

"Illinois is a Democrat-leaning state," Coker said. "Republicans have not carried it since Ronald Reagan. If Kerry is going to have any chance, Illinois is more of a must-win for him than Bush. If you see Bush pull ahead in Illinois, the race is probably over."

As might be expected, Kerry

holds a huge lead, 58 percent to 29 percent, over Bush in heavily Democratic Chicago and Cook County. Ten percent are undecided.

In the once heavily Republican collar counties - Mason-Dixon considers them to be DuPage, McHenry, Lake, Will, Kankakee, Kane, Grundy and Kendall counties - Bush leads, but only by a 48 to 39 percent margin, with 11 percent undecided. Bush leads 45 to 38 percent in central Illinois, with 15 percent undecided. Bush also leads in southern Illinois, 44 to 39 percent, with 16 percent undecided.

Only 46 percent of Illinois voters think Bush is doing an excellent or good job. That is slightly lower than Bush's approval rating in early January, when Mason-Dixon did another poll on Bush's job performance, although the drop is within the poll's margin of error.

"Nationally, if (Bush's) rating is under 50, he'd be a goner," Coker said.

However, because Illinois already is a Democratic-leaning state, Bush's dwindling popularity here is not a serious worry to the campaign, Coker said.

"I wouldn't put Illinois in the battleground category yet," Coker said. "The Republican strategy will be defending the states they won last time and try to pick up a few they narrowly lost."

In the poll, Bush also lost ground on his handling of the war in Iraq and the nation's economy.

In early January, 50 percent of Illinois voters said they approved of Bush's handling of the Iraq war, while 41 percent said they disapproved and 9 percent were undecided. Now, 46 percent of Illinois voters approve of the way Bush is handling the Iraq situation, while the number of undecided has risen to 13 percent. The number of voters who disapprove of Bush's Iraq policy stayed steady at 41 percent.

On the economy, the poll shows that only 41 percent of voters approve of the way Bush is handling the economy. Fully 50 percent disapprove, with 9 percent undecided. Two months ago, 44 percent said they approved of Bush's economic policies, 46 percent disapproved and 10 percent were undecided.

Voters generally said they feel Kerry would do a better job than Bush in handling domestic issues, while they feel more comfortable with Bush when it comes to security issues, both international and domestic.

Asked who would do a better job in handling the economy and unemployment, 42 percent said Kerry, while 34 percent said Bush. Twenty-two percent said they were undecided.

More than half of those polled, 52 percent, said they thought Kerry would do a better job handling issues such as health care and prescription drug coverage. Only 27 percent thought Bush would do a better job, while 18 percent weren't sure.

Kerry again got the nod when people were asked who they thought would do a better job handling education. Kerry was preferred by 44 percent, while Bush was favored by 28 percent. Twenty-five percent were undecided.

Kerry also would better address Social Security issues, the poll found, although by a narrower margin than other domestic issues. The poll revealed that 40 percent of voters think Kerry would do a better job with Social Security, while 34 percent think Bush would do a better job. Twenty-two percent said they weren't sure.

Although support for Bush's Iraq policy is dwindling, voters still think he would do a better job with the situation than Kerry. Asked who would do a better job handling the situation in Iraq, 51 percent of voters said Bush, while 32 percent said Kerry. Sixteen percent were undecided.

Bush was also preferred when the question turned to homeland security and anti-terrorism efforts. By a 54 to 29 percent margin, respondents felt Bush would do a better job than Kerry, although 17 percent were undecided.

Nader didn't score more than 4 percent in any of the categories. Unlike in 2000, Nader is running without a party affiliation this time.

, and there is no guarantee he will be able to meet ballot eligibility standards in Illinois or elsewhere.

"I don't see him as a big factor," Coker said.

With voters split over which candidate they feel could best handle domestic or foreign affairs, events just before the fall election could determine its outcome, said Kent Redfield, a political studies professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield.

"If the situation in terms of international affairs is stable or deteriorating, people are going to focus more on domestic issues," Redfield said. "If, God forbid, there is a terrorist attack in October, then it will be rally around the flag. Events are going to have a big impact."

[Common Tator]

There is a lot of talk about defining Kerry now.

Here is the real definition of defining candidates... and when to do so.

[HostileTerritory]

God, don't I wish Bush could be running against Carol Moseley-Braun this year.

[HostileTerritory]

Dumb statements from people like Greg Mankiw about how wonderful outsourcing is for America?

[Prodigal Son]

No surprise.

No surprise. YOu're right. We have pro-Al Qaeda people right here on FR. Why would it surprise anyone to find that any American supported al Qaeda's candidate- Kerry?

People want to bitch about Spain. We have the makings for something worse in November unless Americans get serious right now.

[raloxk]

ok thanks, forgot about Jerry Costello. so it is 2/9.

[Brilliant]

Of course. In the city where the dead vote, you've got to assume that Kerry will win.

[AuH2ORepublican]

"Your response is predicated on Bush picking up ALL undecided voters in this poll, which is a pretty tall order for an incumbent."

---

No, my response is predicated on Kerry losing support from moderate and conservative Democrats as we head into the spring, then the summer, and then the fall, and voters start to hear about Kerry's record and Bush's accomplishments. If Kerry is at 47% now, he'll likely be at 42% among those same voters by November, since 5% will switch to Bush when it dawns upon them that the economy is doing pretty well and that Kerry would not be as trustworthy of a Commander in Chief. And that means that before we even look at the 12% undecided, Bush would be ahead 44% to 42%. If Bush can then get 6% of the 12% undecided, he would win. But that's not my point. My point is that even if Kerry gets 8% of the 12% undecided and wins Illinois by 50%-48%, it would be a sign that he would likely be losing in Minnesota and Missouri and Iowa and Wisconsin and Michigan, which means that Bush won the election with 100 electoral votes to spare.

How do I know that Kerry will bleed support in Illinois among the 47% that claim to support him today? Well, it's just a hunch. But a state that Gore carried by well over 10% in 2000 should not be this close after Kerry's honeymoon period, and the fact that it is does not bode well for Kerry's candidacy.

[Kuksool]

Bush can win IL, if he carries Downstate and the Collar Counties by 60%. It would offest the Chicago vote. Retiring Sen. Peter Fiztgerald racked these numbers up when he won in 1998. Bush will be hard pressed to repeat these numbers because: (1) Too many Chicago people have moved into the suburbs and (2) Labor unions have too much influence over the conservative Downstate folks.

[Lancey Howard]

Kerry has a big lead in Illinois But outside Chicago, state is Bush land

Of course. If common sense didn't tell us, the famous blue-red, county-by-county post-election map certainly did. Democrats own the parasite nests (cities) and Republicans own the great land-masses of traditional America.

[PokeyJoe]

US Civil War looms between urban and rural americans.

[Torie]

The collar counties, which got the once rabidly conservative Tribune, and were outside the control of the Daley machine, and hated it, tended once to be once of the most GOP places in the US. The Trib has gone liberal, the Daley machine has gone soft and fuzzy and large non corrupt, with a more upscale cultural image, and the collar counties no longer give those mega GOP margins, to check Cook County, and thus Illinois has become rock solid Dem. The Chicago metro area now votes like the Philly metro area, in fact a bit more lib, so it has a bit of NYC metro area mixed in. It is so over for the GOP in Illinois, until the matrix of salient issues changes.

[jwalsh07]

You da man.

[Lunatic Fringe]

Mankiw is right.

Suppose an American company can get supplies of widgets from India at a cost lower than widgets in Ohio. The CEO would be foolish to buy the widgets from the Ohio company.

Same thing applies to: software code, accounting, and LAN administration.

[AuH2ORepublican]

"Bush can win IL, if he carries Downstate and the Collar Counties by 60%. It would offest the Chicago vote. Retiring Sen. Peter Fiztgerald racked these numbers up when he won in 1998. Bush will be hard pressed to repeat these numbers because: (1) Too many Chicago people have moved into the suburbs and (2) Labor unions have too much influence over the conservative Downstate folks."

---

Chicago casts a lower percentage of the state vote today than he did in 1998, and much lower than when Bush 41 carried IL in 1988 (Cook County cast 44% of the state's votes in 1988 and 39% in 2000; if we're only talking about Chicago, the percentages are closer to 22% in 1990 and 19% in 2000), so I don't think Bush would need 60% of the vote outside Chicago in order to win. And while carrying IL is certainly a daunting task for any national Republican, don't forget that the top of the ballot will have "compassionate conservatives" George W. Bush and Jack Ryan on the Republican side and ultraliberals John Kerry and Barrack Obama on the Democrat side. Blue-collar voters Downstate may be traditionally Democrat, but they will not vote for someone they believe will be soft on terrorism or is a liberal extremist on issues such as partial-birth abortion and gay marriage, and I think Bush and Jack Ryan will mop the floor with Kerry and Obama. And in the Collar Counties, national security will be a major issue for the first time since the end of the Cold War, which will help Bush and Jack Ryan. Maybe W. won't be able to approach his father's margins in the Chicago suburbs, but his improvement Downstate (where I think he'll get over 60%) and the fact that Chicago casts a smaller percentage of votes nowadays means that W. doesn't need a supermajority in the Chicago suburbs, he just needs to get 57% or so. It won't be easy for Bush to get these margins, but if Bush is even close it means that he's winning a lot of Midwestern states that Gore managed to carry in 2000.

[raloxk]

"so I don't think Bush would need 60% of the vote outside Chicago in order to win."

Actually that is the number ive been told is needed.

Wha thas happened in Illinois are two things I can detect. One Chicago has becoem even more Democratic. In 1988, GHW Bush won 35% of the City's vote while in 2000, GW Bush won only 15%. The Suburbs are still GOP but the margin has shrunk from 15% to less than 10%. Also GOP leaning downstate is losing population.

The population of Illinois has not changed much in 30 years. So for each Mexican illegal immigrant you see, that represents nearly one native born american who has left the state since 1980.

[raloxk]

Believe it or not in 1964, Barry Goldwater carried Dupage, McHenry and Kane counties

[Kuksool]

If national security becomes the priority issue, then it will be a huge plus for Jack Ryan. For a state with a lot of post-college graduates, IL has alot of dumb voters. They can't the difference between George Ryan and Jim Ryan in 2002. The swing voters might assume Obama is Muslim and reject him at the polls.

[kittymyrib]

Chicago can always print up enough ballots for a dem win. They did it for JFK and they'll do it for JF'nK. It's a tradition among the crooks that inhabit that vile city.

[Kuksool]

Back then, Dupage, McHenry and Kane counties were largely farming commmunities. Now they are booming affluent suburbs with plenty of "soccer moms".

[Rushmore Rocks]

Same problem here in South Dakota. Sioux Falls decides for the rest of the state.....and they LOVE Daschle over there.