Democratic gubernatorial challenger Edwin
Eisendrath has been using some startling poll results to recruit
his top staff, and the numbers appear encouraging. But the big
question — how much money he will spend — has not been
answered. Eisendrath commissioned a benchmark poll in
November. His pollster is Dave Fako, founder of Fako &
Associates. Fako, who once worked for Illinois House Speaker
Michael Madigan, specializes in polling for local races. After a
stint as Paul Vallas’ numbers guy, Fako has become one of the
most used and most trusted Democratic pollsters based in Illinois. The poll surveyed 601 likely Democratic
primary voters. It has a margin of error of 4 percent and was taken
Nov. 18-22. According to Eisendrath’s poll, Gov. Rod
Blagojevich’s job-approval rating among likely Democratic
primary voters is 47 percent, whereas a majority, 51 percent, of
voters disapprove. In contrast, SurveyUSA’s November poll
had Blagojevich doing much better among self-identified Democrats:
52 percent approve, 41 percent disapprove. But SurveyUSA’s
tracker just surveys Illinois residents. It doesn’t
specifically screen for registered voters, likely voters, or likely
primary voters. And because it is a generic poll, the margin of
error for SurveyUSA’s Democratic subset is much higher
— 6.3 percent in the firm’s November tracker. Still,
it’s an independent poll and Eisendrath’s survey is a
candidate poll. Consider yourself forewarned. The Eisendrath poll found that
Blagojevich’s job-approval rating was positive in only one
region, Chicago. Fifty-five percent of likely Chicago Democratic
primary voters approve of his job performance, whereas a rather
large 41 percent disapprove. Everywhere else, the poll found that Blagojevich is in big trouble. South of
Springfield, 42 percent approve of his job performance and 58 percent
disapprove. From Springfield north, excluding Cook and the
collars, just 38 percent approve of the governor’s job
performance, and a whopping 62 percent disapprove. In the collar counties, 42 percent approve and
56 percent disapprove. Suburban Cook County had much the same story
to tell — and 45 percent approve and 53 percent of likely
Democratic Cook County primary voters disapprove of the
governor’s job performance. Fako defends the fact that two of the regions
(both downstate) showed results that added up to 100 percent
— not an everyday occurrence in polling. The governor is very
well known, Fako says, adding that respondents were nudged a bit to
provide a response one way or another. The higher margin of error
for regional subsets could have also played a part, Fako says. (The
poll numbers were supplied by the campaign, not by Fako, in case
you’re wondering. I used every ploy I could think of for a
week to pry the results loose from a campaign that has already
gained a reputation for being extremely tight-lipped about this
sort of stuff.) Fako says that he did not run a head-to-head
comparison of the insurgent candidate against Blagojevich.
Eisendrath is such an unknown that the numbers might not provide
much insight. But Fako did toss in one horserace question.
According to the poll, Blagojevich has a 60-26 lead over Republican
frontrunner Judy Baar Topinka among likely Democratic primary
voters. That result, if true, is absolutely miserable for the
governor and encouraging for Topinka. If she really is getting a
quarter of hardcore Democrats, then she is in great position for
the fall campaign — if she manages to win the GOP primary. Eisendrath’s campaign manager, Brandon
Hurlbut, said last week that the Fako poll was a big reason he
signed on with Eisendrath; it showed that Blagojevich was
definitely beatable. Other Eisendrath staffers have broadly hinted
at the same thing. Hurlbut cut his political teeth in Glenn
Poshard’s 1998 race, got his law degree and eventually got
back into politics. Word is that Eisendrath will be running
downstate ads soon, but a launch date and the size of the buy could
not be confirmed. Nobody knows yet how much Eisendrath will spend
on this race, although he told one paper that he estimates between
$3 million and $5 million. Regardless of any poll numbers the
campaign may leak, insiders are generally reluctant to predict that
he will be a contender until they see those dollar signs.
Blagojevich has so much cash that it colors every response to a
possible contender, no matter how poorly the governor has done in
every poll to date.
This article appears in Jan 26 – Feb 1, 2006.
