Hynes Campaign: Pat Quinn Is 'Unelectable' In November

"Dan Hynes beats the Republicans, Pat Quinn doesn't," the Hynes campaign told reporters on Wednesday.

Hynes officials cited recent polls showing incumbent governor Pat Quinn would struggle against Republicans in November, claiming that "the trendline is very clear."

Jeff Pollock, the campaign's chief pollster, cited the new Public Policy Polling figures released Wednesday. These figures give Quinn only a 25% approval rating, with 55% of voters disapproving of him. The campaign's comments echoed PPP's own assessment of the poll; on the PPP blog, pollster Tom Jensen writes that "those sorts of numbers make [Quinn] virtually unelectable in the general election."

Worse yet, "he doesn't even get close to a 50% job approval rating among Democrats," Pollock said. Without support from within his party, Pollock intimated that Quinn's seat could go the way of some other recent Democratic disasters. "Quinn is in a far worse situation than Jon Corzine" was, he said, referring to the incumbent New Jersey governor who lost to Republican Chris Christie in 2009.

Pollock also described some internal polling done by the Hynes campaign on the approval question. When asked if they would judge the governor's performance as excellent, good, only fair, or poor, a mere 36% of Democrats said excellent or good, while 60% went with fair or poor.

Meanwhile, the new PPP survey also polled Hynes and Quinn against two Republican front-runners, Jim Ryan and Andy McKenna. Hynes polled ahead of each of them, while Quinn was six and seven points down, respectively.

It's unclear how either of them would fare against Republican Kirk Dillard, a moderate who's in close contention for the GOP bid and who might steal some independent votes. PPP didn't poll the question, and the Hynes campaign repeatedly insisted that it had done no polling about the general election.

But with a new Rasmussen poll giving Hynes a six-point lead over Quinn, campaign manager Mike Rendina says that Hynes "is building some serious momentum."

With the primary coming unusually early this year--Election Day is next Tuesday, February 2--Quinn is seeking to regain the momentum with a heartfelt new ad criticizing Hynes's negativity. "On Tuesday my opponent is counting on false, negative ads to win," Quinn says. "Me? I'm counting on you."

Comments

[BluebirdofUnhappiness]

03:51 AM on 01/28/2010

I'm not terribly impressed with Hynes. I hope we don't get a repeat of the last hold-your-nose and vote for the Democrat governor election. That turned out sooo well last time. As did getting a Republican governor.

[OneConservative]

10:37 PM on 01/27/2010

The problem is that Hynes is unelectable too. The whole Democrat party needs to go.

[Sirapnov]

07:01 PM on 01/27/2010

Negative ad or not, just be prepared to vote for Hynes in November 2010.

One brought a dead person to testify that his opponent is chronically incompetent. The other one asserted that his challenger did not defend the dead enough in a scandal involving a cemetery. Well for the moment I am still alive and I am paying taxes. I should be able to make a well-informed opinion on this two candidates.
With nearly 13 billion dollars deficit and no creative plan to solve the problem, I am sorry to say that I agree with former Major Harold Washington, Quinn is just bad for Illinois.

[Mark Prokscch]

04:25 PM on 01/27/2010

Really? This is what the Hynes folks are finally stooping to? These are the facts: Hynes is old-school, machine politics; Quinn is the scrapper the others have alway tried to keep down. I find it hilarious that Hynes is trying to paint Quinn as the "Incumbent" when Hynes, only with the help of his daddy, is the real incumbent. Hynes would run a negative ad against his grandmother if he thought it would win him the election.

[crookedcountyillinois]

04:39 PM on 01/27/2010

Mark Prokscch,

You're right about Hynes. But you think Quinn is a "scrapper"...?

The only idea Quinn has had in almost a year of being Governor is to raise taxes. If he were a "scrapper", he'd stick up for the taxpayers against the special interests (like most of his and Hynes' campaign donors). Instead, he rolled over and took the money.

You are aware that the special interests are as much a problem with the Democrats as with the Republicans. Right? In Illinois, AFSCME, COPE, SEIU, and a million other organizations are already built into your property taxes, sales taxes, and income taxes. And you can't fight for them, like Quinn has, AND fight for the citizens, taxpayers, and everyday "Joe". It's physically impossible because we all want entirely different things.

Cordially,

David

[Gauche2010]

04:42 PM on 01/27/2010

Seems you're making it very personal with Hynes. He's simply citing a poll.