Rod Rebounding in Polls, Conservatives Avoiding Topinka Like the Plague, and Three Wild Cards....What Does It Mean?

Blagojevich off life support and showing signs of recovery
As Rich Miller reported this morning, the latest SurveyUSA polls show that Governor Blagojevich's poll numbers have improved slightly over last month. But more important for the Governor is this trend, which shows his numbers improving pretty steadily over the past year.

Lovie's Leather got a little bent out of shape when I pointed out what I thought was pretty obvious: In a state where over 40% of voters identify themselves as Democrats and only 24% of voters call themselves Republicans, it will be next to impossible for Topinka to beat Blagojevich, especially if Blagojevich continues to consolidate his base and Topinka continues to struggle with hers. (P.S. Lovie, I'm sure not making any money off the Governor. In fact, I didn't even vote for him in the Primary, not that it makes what I said any more or less true).

Because the May '05 poll doesn't have full crosstabs, I've compared this month's crosstabs to July '05. Here's what I see:

- Overall job approval is up 11 points (47), including 16 points among Republicans and a more modest 5 points among Democrats, to 60% (BTW, Durbin is at 62% with Democrats);

- Blagojevich gained 12 points with pro-life voters and 6 points with pro-choice voters;

- Job approval shot up 16 points in the collar counties (45%) and 12 points downstate;

- Hispanic support is up 17 points, to 56%. Although Hispanics only make up 11% of registered voters, if immigration remains a hot federal issue and Latino leaders manage to leverage it into a voter registration and GOTV issue, their support could make the difference in an election that goes down to the wire;

- Job approval is up 11 points among conservatives and 11 points among moderates;

Granted, nine to twelve months ago Rod Blagojevich had nowhere to go but up, but given that he has steadily improved over the past nine months in every demographic crosstab, he holds a huge money advantage, and SurveyUSA shows that Illinois is now the bluest state in the Union -- with the possible exception of California (42% D v. 28% R) -- Topinka is staring up Mt. Everest.

The Big Question: Conservatives couldn't count on Judy, can she count on them?
With less than six months before Election Day, Topinka needs the political equivalent of a Perfect Storm in order to win. But rather than unite behind the GOP standardbearer, all signs indicate that Conservatives are poised to take the wind out of Topinka's sails:

- Tom Roeser says Conservatives would be better off re-electing Blagojevich than Topinka;
- Greg Blankenship's ultra-right Illinois Policy Institute says that Blagojevich is better than Topinka when it comes to tax policy;
- ISMIE, long the piggybank for GOP candidates, gave Rod Blagojevich an early Christmas present by cutting med mal insurance rates (think we won't see that t.v. ad in the Metro-East?), crediting the new cap on victims' compensation (which they previous said wouldn't have any benefit until the Supreme Court weighed in on the issue).

Will Conservative Republicans support Topinka next fall? Unlikely, if they remember how Topinka refused to support conservative Alan Keyes, excluding him from a state party mailer just two years ago.

The Wild Cards: Patrick Fitzgerald, the Economy and Sen. Meeks
Of course, Topinka won't need much help from conservatives if any of the several ongoing investigations into Gov. Blagojevich's office bear any real fruit. Fitzgerald will have to win the George Ryan trial first, of course. But any hopes from the Topinka camp that Fitzgerald will step up his timetable to boost her chances are in vain. In fact, he's more likely to let things cool of until after the election, since there's more or less an unwritten rule in Justice Department about not meddling with the outcome of an election. Also remember that it took dozens of low-level convictions to finally close the net around George Ryan, so if there is a prosecutorial path to Blagojevich, it is likely a long and winding road.

The Illinois Chamber of Commerce and Topinka were also hoping to make a major issue out of the economy this fall, but those hopes appear to be dimming. The Chamber's mantra has been that "200,000 manufacturing jobs lost over the last five years." Forget for a minute that 160,000 of those jobs were lost under George Ryan, and that no sane economist would blame George Ryan or any Governor for job losses that were a result of U.S. trade policy. When people are unemployed or scared, they lose all rationality, whatever the facts. Unfortunately for Topinka, the Chamber, and Republicans, Illinois' job creation numbers are finally beginning to catch up with the rest of the country, and Illinois unemployment rate has now fallen to it's lowest levels since 2000. Illinois' unemployment rate has fallen for 7 of the last 8 months, and assuming that rate continues, which seems pretty likely, the economy is unlikely to be much of an issue in this election. Still, if the economy suddenly turns south, it will be welcome news to Topinka, as Rich Miller hints in this link to National Journal coverage.

That leaves Sen. James Meeks. I don't think he can make much of a dent in Blagojevich's numbers (let alone win), because you need money, staff, consultants, and your own political base to run statewide, and Meeks has none of those. But, if he gets in there is always a chance he'll tilt the election in Topinka's favor, which he wouldn't mind at all since she'll undoubtedly support some sort of income tax increase.

And since Meeks already has another fulltime gig and doesn't need a state pension, he has almost nothing to lose by running. I say "almost" because, if Meeks gets in and Blagojevich still wins, the election will be remembered as a referendum on the property tax swap idea just as 1994 was, and reform will be dead for another 12 years. Having said all that, I think there is a very good chance Meeks will throw his hat in the ring, especially if Deputy Governor Bradley Tusk keeps making in-your-face comments like these.

Predicting any election is tricky business, but right now I give Blagojevich 3-to-1 odds in a head-to-head match-up. But if Meeks gets in, all bets are off in a three-way race.

Update: Sorry about the broken Daily Southtown link. It's fixed now. Here's what Tusk called Kadner to say: "We are not changing our position on taxes. Let there be no misconception about that." Absolutely nothing reconciliatory about that. It's an invitation for Meeks to run.