The Illinois Manufacturers Association released the first polling on Illinois Senate and House primaries today, and the results are found on their website HERE. Feel free to comment on your observations.
As expected, while primary candidates have been working hard to get their names on the ballots and getting their campaigns set up and funded, voters haven't been paying too much attention to mid-ticket races. So candidate name recognition lends itself to the best polling results this early on - and that's especially true in party primary races.
Incumbents that haven't been in the news for embarrassing or negative reasons will normally continue to get the thumbs up over challengers, but, as in the IMA poll, in most cases, shows the vast majority of voters haven't yet focused or come close to deciding yet. These early numbers do, though, show what the campaigns already know - exactly what they have to do to win.
So for all, the campaign work now starts in earnest. Challengers will need to raise enough funds and earned press and find reasons to cause discontentment with the names the voters already know. If that doesn't happen early, even in a "throw the bums out" year, most incumbents in the non-publicized legislature races will likely be re-elected.
Certainly, the IMA poll shows the battles for name recognition, for money and for volunteers in key areas throughout the state. All that while a presidential race goes on at the top of the ballot and crucial county races underneath.
