SPRINGFIELD – Depending on who is doing the polling and how those polls are interpreted, it is no surprise that Illinoisans as a whole are leaning towards Hillary Clinton and Tammy Duckworth for the November ballot's top two slots.
The President in back in Chicago Friday to raise funds for them.
To the degree Illinois voters are leaning Left depends on who is reporting.
The latest downstate Paul Simon Public Policy Institute says Hillary Clinton is leading over Donald Trump by 23 points in Illinois, while Real Clear Politics averages the latest polling to show Clinton ahead by 14.7. RCP shows Illinois as the only solid blue state in the Midwest.
“This is Clinton’s home state and it is a state that has not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1988,” said John Jackson, one of the designers of the poll and a Visiting Professor at the Institute. “This poll shows that Clinton is certainly living up to the conventional expectations for a Democratic candidate in the kind of big and diverse Midwestern state she must win to be elected.”
While incumbent U.S. Senator Mark Kirk insists that his polling shows he's in a statistical tie with Democratic challenger Tammy Duckworth, The Simon Institute disagrees.
"In the U.S. Senate race, the geographic breakdown is 61 percent for Duckworth in the city of Chicago to 26 percent for Kirk. In suburban Cook and the collar counties, 51 percent plan to vote for Duckworth compared to 31 percent for Kirk. Downstate Kirk is winning with 44 percent compared to Duckworth’s 36 percent," the Institute reported this week.
They show statewide numbers with Duckworth at a 14 point lead over Kirk statewide.
