-By Warner Todd Huston
The folks at Champion News has the results of a new poll that shows that race for the GOP nomination for Governor has tightened a little and a new candidate has stormed into second place.
Conservative businessman Bruce Rauner is still in the lead, but his numbers have dropped to 18 percent. This is to be expected as we get closer to primary Election Day.
But the more interesting aspect of this poll is that State Senator Kirk Dillard has stormed into second place while State Treasurer Dan Rutherford, the former number two man, has fallen to the bottom of the pack.
The poll gives Rauner a big lead at 35.6 percent. But Dillard has come from last place to second with 17.25 percent of the vote. Then, taking up a perennial third place, State Senator Bill Brady garnered 12.8 percent of the vote.
Dillard was saying last week that Rutherford and Brady should quit the race because the momentum for second place was on his side. This poll seems to prove him right.
But the biggest fall from grace is Treasurer Rutherford who was prominently in second place until allegations of sexual harassment against him were revealed just prior to a gubernatorial debate held earlier this month. Rutherford is now only showing a 7.5 percent approval.
Of course, the biggest hope for the other three is that the undecided is still at 26.9 percent. This is a big enough number to push any candidate into first place if they all went one way or another.
Kirk Dillard sustained some criticism earlier this month when he proudly accepted the endorsement of the Illinois Education Association.
He is also set to accept the endorsement of the retired teachers association this week.
Still, the poll shows that Rauner seems to be winning not just with head-to-head popularity but also in all the sub categories. Dillard has quite a lot to over come in a short period if he expects to beat Rauner for the GOP nomination.
But it is likely that what we are seeing in Rauner’s lead is a twofold reason. Firstly the “throw ‘em all out” feeling among voters who are hungry for someone who is an outsider–one not a lifelong politician–could be driving his position polling.
Secondly is the fact that the ultra wealthy Rauner has sent an avalanche of radio and TV ads across the state and has sucked up all the air on the GOP side of the debate.
As a candidate Rauner has many, many problems, such as his many and varied stories about how and when he got his daughter into an exclusive Chicago school, and not the least of which is his long ties to Democrats, but these issues are either not getting out to voters or they just don’t care because their white hot ire over the entrenched political establishment.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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