//
you're reading...
Elections 2010, IL 5th House

Illinois 2010 Elections: New Poll Says State Rep. Ken Dunkin Faces “Classic Signs of an Incumbent in Trouble”

David Schroeder

(Chicago, IL) — December 3, 2009. State Rep. Ken Dunkin (D-Chicago) faces an uphill struggle to keep his seat if Democratic primary opponents attorneys David Schroeder and Gwendolyn Drake gain traction.

Voters in Dunkin’s district have a dim view of his job performance, according to a new poll by Washington D.C.-based Lake Research Partners taken for Schroeder.

The poll* reveals that 32% of voters have a “fair or poor” view of Dunkin’s job performance while just 37%  view his performance as “excellent or good” and 31% have no opinion at all.

Uh, oh.

“These are classic signs of an incumbent in trouble. Despite his several years in office, Dunkin’s image is remarkably thin and his job performance mixed among the Democratic base,” wrote Daniel Gotoff and Jason Kravitz in a polling memo on December 1.

The poll memo authors also note:

“Just 35% of Democratic primary voters would re-elect Dunkin, leaving nearly two-thirds who would either consider someone else (22%), vote to replace Dunkin (8%), or don’t know (35%). The typical range of viability on this metric of an incumbent’s political health is between 40% and 50% – and that is among General election voters.  Dunkin fails even to breach this threshold of support among the primary voters who should comprise his political base.”

However, what the memo ignores is the mother’s milk of polling–the horse race numbers. There are no head-to-head numbers among the three candidates.

Schroeder Campaign Manager Erik Wallenius wrote in an e-mail, “Gwen Drake and David Schroeder, are newcomers … we believe the head-to-head numbers from this poll are not terribly meaningful…”

What that means is that Dunkin is way ahead of either Schroeder or Drake.

Dunkin’s numbers may be dismal, but you can’t beat somebody with nobody. And at the moment, both Schroeder and Drake are nobodies in the minds of the district voters. If Schroeder or Drake expect to overtake Dunkin, they have around 60 days to do it.

In the next 60 days, they have to dump a ton of money into direct mail to raise their profile and credibility and another ton of dough in direct mail to take Dunkin down. It can be done. But it takes money and time.

Schroeder is raising money. Drake is raising money. But will they have enough?

And there is the time. The limited time–the 60 days on the calendar until February 2, 2010–limits their room to grow, communicate their messages, and maneuver.

Time is Ken Dunkin‘s key asset in the race.

======================================================================

*Lake Research Partners designed and administered this survey, which was conducted by telephone using professional interviewers.  The survey reached 400 adults, 18 years or older, in Illinois’ 5th Assembly District who are registered and likely to vote in the 2010 Democratic Primary Election.  The survey was conducted between November 3rd and November 9th, 2009.  The margin of error for this survey is +/-4.9%.

About David Ormsby

David, a public relations consultant and blogger at The Huffington Post, is an ex-Press Secretary of the Illinois Democratic Party.

Discussion

No comments yet.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Submit your email address and be among the first to receive our posts by e-mail as soon as they are published. It's free.

David Ormsby, Editor

RSS Gov. Pat Quinn

  • McHenry County Blog | Pat Quinn Tells Truth about Pension ... Cal Skinner
  • Pat Quinn Criticizes Scott Walker On Jobs The Huffington Post News Editors
  • Will Governor Pat Quinn Sign Illinois Budget on Thursday? « Child ... Marge Berglind
  • Quinn: Lawmakers Must 'Show Some Fortitude' On Pension ... Todd Feurer
  • Governor Pat Quinn Puts His Foot Down On Gambling Expansion ... Mark
  • Senate narrowly backs Quinn on facility closures - Capitol Fax.com Rich Miller
  • Gov. Pat Quinn Releases 2011 Federal, Illinois Taxes David Ormsby
  • Democurmudgeon: Gov. Pat Quinn exposes Scott Walker as a fake ... Democurmudgeon
  • Chicago News Bench: No, Really, Pat Quinn Still Sucks More Than ... TM-1000
  • Advocates Seek Illinois Child Welfare Vision from Governor Pat Quinn Marge Berglind

RSS IL General Assembly

  • General Assembly puts health exchange bill on back burner - Crain's Chicago Business May 10, 2012
  • IL educators react to proposed state budget cuts - WREX-TV May 11, 2012
  • Violence Against Women Act Survives Partisan Fight, Quinn Told Not To Close ... - Patch.com May 9, 2012
  • American Progressive Bag Alliance Urges Illinois General Assembly To Pass ... - MarketWatch (press release) May 1, 2012
  • You Paid For It: IL General Assembly Scholarship Program - FOX2now.com May 7, 2012
  • Our Opinion: Anti-bully bill should get OK - The State Journal-Register May 10, 2012
  • Illinois State University considers 4.4 percent tuition increase - Herald & Review May 10, 2012
  • American Progressive Bag Alliance Urges Illinois General Assembly To Pass ... - PR Newswire (press release) May 1, 2012
  • Asian-Americans to have state caucus - WBEZ May 8, 2012
  • Suburban mayors also urge state to pass pension reform - Chicago Sun-Times May 10, 2012

RSS The Capitol Fax Blog

  • Question of the day May 10, 2012 Rich Miller
  • Political cover or political payback? May 10, 2012 Rich Miller
  • Illinois Needs Private Sector Jobs Now! Why Labor Leaders Support Senate Bill 1849 May 10, 2012 Advertising Department
  • Senate narrowly backs Quinn on facility closures - Chamber backs Quinn pension reforms May 10, 2012 Rich Miller
  • House approves bill to effectively end free employee health insurance premiums May 10, 2012 Rich Miller
  • *** UPDATED x2 - VIDEO *** Smith hearing resumes today (LIVE Coverage and Video) May 10, 2012 Rich Miller
  • *** UPDATED x2 *** Not a big deal at all, but it’s probably time to delegate a bit more May 10, 2012 Rich Miller
  • Morning Shorts May 10, 2012 Owen Irwin
  • *** LIVE SESSION COVERAGE *** May 10, 2012 Rich Miller
  • Protected: SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - COWL review, supplement to today’s edition and a Statehouse roundup May 10, 2012 Rich Miller
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 135 other followers

Powered by WordPress.com