Illinois

YouGov
October 16, 2012, 7:00 PM GMT+0

Democratic President Barack Obama holds a solid, 20-point lead over Republican challenger Mitt Romney in the President’s home state of Illinois, 58% Obama to 38% Romney, in a YouGov poll of 850 likely voters statewide (recontacted from an initial September poll).

In Illinois (Oct 4-11):

Partisan loyalty is strong on both sides, with 93% of Democrats intending to vote Obama and 92% of Republicans intending to vote for Romney.

Independents are split evenly, 46%-46%.

Women strongly favor Obama 65%-32%, while among men Obama is more narrowly ahead (51%-44%).

Obama enjoys a huge lead over Romney in his hometown, the City of Chicago (82%-16%). He also enjoys solid leads in the Cook County Suburbs and in the Collar Counties surrounding Cook (56%-41% and 57%-37%, respectively).

Romney is well ahead in the state’s Southern region (56%-39%), and is narrowly ahead in the Northern downstate region (50%-46%).

The oldest voters age 65+ favor Obama (Obama 52% - Romney 43%), while young voters do so as well, but by a much larger margin (67%-30%).

Net Change in Voter Intention (Likely Voters)
TotalIndependents

Sept 7-14

Oct 4-11

Sept 7-14

Oct 4-11

Barack Obama

59%

58%

46%

46%

Mitt Romney

36%

38%

45%

46%

Likely voters in Illinois are primarily supporting Democratic congressional candidates, with 48% intending to vote for the Democratic candidate for the House in their district, and 36% intending to vote for the Republican candidate.

The poll was conducted online October 4-11, 2012.

Sampling method: Respondents were initially selected on September 7-14 from YouGov’s panel using sample matching. A random sample (stratified by age, gender, race, education, and region) was selected from the 2005–2007 American Community Study. Voter registration, turnout, religion, news interest, minor party identification, and non-placement on an ideology scale, were imputed from the 2008 Current Population Survey Registration and Voting supplement and the Pew Religion in American Life Survey. Matching respondents were selected from the YouGov panel, an opt-in Internet panel.

Respondents were recontacted on October 4-11 for the second wave of the YouGov poll. The percentage of likely voters who were successfully recontacted was 80.3%.

Weighting: The sample was weighted using propensity scores based on age, gender, race, education, news interest, voter registration, and non-placement on an ideology scale.

Number of respondents: 850 likely voters.

Margin of error ± 3.9% (adjusted for weighting).

Click here for September 7-14 results (registered voters).

Click here for October 4-11 results (likely voters).