August 16, 2018 For more information

For immediate release contact Rod McCulloch 312-388-1782

On Governor’s Day at the Illinois State Fair, Democratic challenger JB Pritzker leads incumbent Republican Governor Bruce Rauner by nearly eleven percent (41.1%-30.2%), according to the latest Illinois Poll. Conservative Party candidate State Senator Sam McCann is at 8.8% and Libertarian Party candidate Kash Jackson received 1.6% in the poll. Almost a fifth of voters (18.3%) say they remain undecided.

The poll of 1208 likely Illinois general election voters was conducted August 12-14, 2018. The margin of error is 2.8%. The poll was conducted by live callers and answered on both land lines (614) and cell phones (594).

Since 2001, Victory Research has conducted a semi-monthly statewide poll called The Illinois Poll. Victory Research does not have a client in the Illinois Governor’s race. Victory Research’s website is www.illinoispoliticsblog.com.

Pritzker’s lead is built on a huge advantage in largely Democratic Chicago, where he leads the Governor 67.3%-9.2% and to a lesser extent in suburban Cook County, where Pritzker leads by ten percent (40.8%-30.7%), although Pritzker is not close to 50% in the Cook County suburbs.

Senator McCann’s candidacy clearly hurts Governor Rauner’s re-election chances more than Pritzker’s campaign at this point, according to the poll. McCann, who has been critical of the Governor on some conservative issues, attracts the support of 14.6% of self- identified Republican voters in the poll, and only 1.6% of self-identified Democratic voters. Combined with the 3.5% of self-identified Republican voters who say they are for Libertarian Jackson, and the 6.7% of those voters who say they are undecided, nearly a fourth (24.8%) of all Republican voters are not currently supporting the incumbent Republican Governor.

Geographically, outside of Cook County, McCann’s candidacy hits double digit support in the areas of the state where Governor Rauner performed the best in 2016 when he defeated Governor Pat Quinn.

In Northern Illinois, for example, Rauner defeated Quinn by twenty percentage points in 2016 (57.9%-37.8%). In the poll, Rauner is ahead of Pritzker by less than four percentage points (38.5%-34.6%), with McCann breaking double digits at 10.8%. In Central Illinois in 2016, Rauner crushed Quinn by almost thirty percentage points (61.8%-32.6%). Now, Rauner and Pritzker are locked in a dead heat in the region (33.3%-32.4%), with McCann at 15%. Finally, in Southern Illinois, the area of Rauner’s greatest margin in 2016 (62.2%- 32.2%), the three candidates are locked in a virtual tie, (Pritzker 27.3%, Rauner 27.3%, McCann 23.4%), according to the poll.

In a separate question, respondents were asked if Governor Rauner deserves to be re- elected to a second term in office. Less than a third (31.0%) of voters said Rauner does deserve to be re-elected while 57.2% said he does not, according to the poll. 11.8% are undecided.

On this question too, Rauner’s campaign is vulnerable to the conservative third party challengers. The first term Governor, who faced a contentious conservative challenger in the primary in State Representative Jeanne Ives, has not completely won over conservative voters back to his side. Among self-identified conservative voters, barely half (52.4%) say he deserves to be re-elected.

Polling Results