WHEATON – A false claim that former Governor Rauner used in 2018 to discourage conservatives Downstate not familiar with Jeanne Ives against voting for her in the 2018 GOP gubernatorial primary is being tried once again. This time in a push poll question on a phone survey, writes McHenry County Blog writer Cal Skinner:
I was more than a little disturbed right before the 2018 Primary Election when Governor Bruce Rauner spent millions on TV ads, plus I think I remember direct mail, to label opponent Jeanne Ives “Mike Madigan’s favorite Republican.”
Imagine my reaction when a robo-poll from the 6th District congressional campaign of his Lieutenant Governor Evelyn Sanguinetti used the same pitch on the Sunday before last.
A “push poll” question, Skinner explains, is one that provides negative information about the candidate not favored by the group financing the survey, and then asks which candidate one would vote for.Skinner himself received the call, and recalls via his notes what each push poll question was about:
The first had to do with Sanguinetti’s Hispanic background and her being the first such lieutenant governor in the United States.
The second claimed that Sanguinetti “spent ten years fighting Mike Madigan,” while (apparently because of contributions from the same union source) Jeanne Ives “is Mike Madigan’s favorite Republican.”
The third pointed out that Sanguinetti was a first generation American, her family having fled from Castro’s Cuba and that she “opposes AOC and the Squad.”
After pushing the Sanguinetti campaign a little himself, Skinner says they admitted paying for the robo-poll.
Skinner lists several news sources that blasted the name-calling tactic Rauner's campaign used in 2018, and then writes:
That same line of attack is showing up so early in the Sanguinetti campaign is sad.
Why would Sanguinetti go so blantantly and falsely negative so early in the campaign?
Does it indicate that Ives is really far ahead of Sanguinetti?
Inside sources that won't go on the record tell us Ives is leading in the 6th CD's GOP primary campaign polling. A third candidate, Jay Kinzler, was not mentioned in the poll.
