Lightfoot poll suggests Rahm in big trouble
In late March, the Democratic pollster to whom Rahm Emanuel once sent a dead fish delivered the political version of a dead fish to the mayor: a poll that, Alan Secrest claimed, showed Emanuel was unelectable.
That poll, conducted for mayoral challenger Garry McCarthy, pegged Emanuel’s job performance rating at just 32 percent and the mayor’s favorability rating at 36 percent. Emanuel’s campaign tried to discredit the McCarthy poll by smearing Secrest.
Now, a poll conducted for another mayoral challenger— Lori Lightfoot— shows similar numbers, making the results more difficult for the embattled two- term mayor to ignore.
The telephone survey of 800 Chicago voters deemed “likely” to cast ballots in the February 2019 mayoral election was conducted April 23 to April 26 by pollster Jason McGrath.
It showed that just 31 percent said they would vote to re- elect Emanuel. When respondents were asked to choose between Emanuel and someone new — without mentioning a specific alternative— 62 percent of those surveyed said they wanted to try someone else.
When Emanuel was pitted against “a number of announced and likely candidates in the race,” his numbers went up only to 34 percent — statistically insignificant, given the poll’s margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.
McGrath also did polling for Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx and for three Democratic members of Congress: Robin Kelly, Cheri Bustos and Raja Krishnamoorthi.
This latest poll was conducted roughly two weeks before Lightfoot declared her candidacy.
At the time, McCarthy was in second place, with 16 percent of the vote, followed by Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown with 15 percent and former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas with 9 percent.
Lightfoot was in the 2 to 3 percent range, just above County Commissioner Bridget Gainer, who is poised to enter the race in days.
But when voters were told a little about Lightfoot’s background, she moved into second place. And when they were told enough to simulate a “well- funded campaign,” the former Police Board president managed to consolidate much of the anti- Emanuel sentiment in a head- to- head race, building a 50- 40 percent lead in a potential runoff.
Secrest has declared Emanuel “unelectable” and said the only way for the mayor to avoid embarrassment would be to retire. McGrath isn’t going quite that far. But his poll clearly shows how much trouble the mayor is in.
The Lightfoot poll shows the mayor with just 39 percent support among whites, 31 percent from African- Americans and 26 percent among Hispanics.
His base, if he still has one, comes from his 47 percent support among voters over 65, with “some residual support” among lakefront whites of all ages. But neither of those blocs show Emanuel over 50 percent.
Emanuel campaign spokesperson Caron Brookens summarily dismissed the Lightfoot poll.
“In politics, the only people who release months old stale polling are those who don’t have a good story to tell today,” Brookens wrote in an email.
“Our CURRENT polling shows the Mayor beating all challengers by double digits.”
Lightfoot said the “No. 1 take- away” from her poll is that Chicagoans are looking for somebody else.
“Those are really hard numbers to overcome. You’ve got to, frankly, have a different kind of personality and offer people hope for a different, better future,” she said.
Even with McCarthy solidly in second, Lightfoot was encouraged, because “there’s nobody else in the race right nowor thinking about it who can put together the kind of winning coalition that any candidate needs to be successful,” she said.
After raising $ 503,000 in the second quarter from 700 contributors, Lightfoot feels “very comfortable” about having enough money to get her message out.
“It’s $ 500,000 a week to get on network TV. . . . That’s a helluva lot of money. We predict that TV starts sometime in January and runs through Feb. 26,” she said.
“We’re smart and mindful of that. But, we’re also gonna be really, really creative in the way that we reach out to people.”