 The U.S. Senate race between Republican Mark Kirk and Democrat Alexi
Giannoulias is a dead heat."Few states have the two top races as
close as those in Illinois," said David Yepsen, director of the
Simon Institute. "These races could turn on the smallest thing -- a
gaffe, the turnout efforts or unforeseen events. Every vote will be
important."
Charles Leonard, the Simon Institute visiting professor who
supervised the poll, said: "Our results appear to be in line with
other recent surveys, in that Bill Brady holds a single-digit lead
over Pat Quinn. Similarly, the Simon Poll shows the U.S. Senate race
remains a virtual tie between Alexi Giannoulias and Mark Kirk.
"Taken as a whole, these recent Illinois polls demonstrate that
the governor's race is more volatile and that opinions in the Senate
race are more hardened and are more difficult to move. That there
are still 1 in 5 voters saying they are undecided adds to the air of
uncertainty about both these races," Leonard said.
Yepsen said the poll is good news for Republican Brady.
"Brady leads Quinn, who had been closing in on him in other
recent polls. Also, the survey shows Republicans are more excited
about this election," Yepsen said.
In the race for governor, Brady is capturing 38.4 percent of the
vote to Quinn's 29.8 percent. Independent candidate Scott Lee Cohen
captures 5.9 percent, and Green Party candidate Rich Whitney garners
2.2 percent. Libertarian candidate Lex Green is at 1.5 percent.
There are 22.1 percent who are undecided or who favor another
candidate.
In the Senate contest, Kirk has 37.3 percent and Giannoulias has
36.8 percent. Green Party candidate LeAlan Jones has 3.3 percent and
Libertarian Mike Labno has 1.8 percent. There are 20.7 percent who
are undecided or who favor another candidate.
[to top of second column] |
The survey of 1,000 registered voters was taken Sept. 30 to Oct.
10 and has a margin of error of 3 percentage points. It found 758
who were classified as likely voters. Few polls of the Illinois
contests have sample sizes as large as this one. The margin for
error among likely voters is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
The numbers in this release are those for likely voters.
Results from the entire sample have a statistical margin for
error of 3 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.
This means that if the survey were to be conducted 100 times, in 95
of those instances the results would vary by no more than plus or
minus 3 points from the results obtained here. The margin for error
will be larger for demographic, geographic and response subgroups.
Likely voters are respondents who passed a two-question "screen":
first, that they were absolutely certain to vote, and second, that
they knew exactly where their polling place was.
[Text from
poll report from the
Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois
University Carbondale]
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