* As usual with statewide polls, crime is way down the list of issues important to voters…
I wish they would’ve asked about property taxes.
* On to other results. Darren Bailey leads the race in the Republican primary…
Lots of undecided voters, but he’s retained more than half the support he had four years ago, when he won the primary with 57 percent.
* Gov. JB Pritzker’s approval rating…
Pritzker appears to be an outlier in the region. Ohio’s governor had a 26 percent approval rating while 45% disapproved last fall in another Emerson poll. Also last fall, Indiana’s governor had a 24 percent favorable rating with 43 percent unfavorable, “while 22 percent had no opinion and 11 percent had never heard of him.” Last summer, a Marquette poll had Wisconsin’s governor at 48 percent approval and 46 percent disapproval, but 55 percent didn’t want him to run for a third term. And I’m figuring Minnesota’s numbers were deeply in the tank since he bowed out of the race.
* President Trump’s approval rating…
* Some more…
* The methodology…
The Emerson College Polling/WGN-TV Illinois survey was conducted January 3-5, 2026. The overall sample of Illinois likely primary voters, n=1,000, has a credibility interval, similar to a poll’s margin of error (MOE), of +/- 3 percentage points. The Democratic Primary consists of a sample size of n=568, with a credibility interval of +/-4%. The Republican Primary consists of a sample size of n=432, with a credibility interval of +/-4.7%. The data sets were weighted by gender, education, race, age, and region based on U.S. Census parameters and voter file data.
