Will Pritzker win reelection? FiveThirtyEight says he has a 99% chance of defeating Bailey

FiveThirtyEight ran their model 40,000 times, and Pritzker won every 99 out of 100.

Image by StormBo, CC BY-SA 4.0 cropped, via Wikimedia Commons

(CHICAGO) Republican governor candidate Darren Bailey has called the city of Chicago many things, among them, "a hellhole" and "an unruly child." Despite that, he has recently been living in the former John Hancock Center as he said, to "immerse" himself "in the culture."

Did his late-in-the-campaign attempt to better understand the city and its voters help him get the Chicago vote? And can any Republican candidate win Illinois without substantial votes from Chicago? According to FiveThirtyEight, Bailey's campaign doesn't have much chance against incumbent Governor J.B. Pritzker.

FiveThirtyEight says Pritzker is "very likely to win Illinois' race for governor"

FiveThirtyEight simulated the election 40,000 times using its aggregated polling data. Out of these 40,000 times, Pritzker won 99 out of every 100, making him "very likely" to defeat Bailey.

FiveThirtyEight predicts the final results to be:

• 57.2% for Pritzker
• 39.9% for Bailey

Chicagoans favor Pritzker

A Sun-Times/WBEZ Poll found that 70% of Chicagoans hold a "good opinion" of Pritzker. Downstate, Pritzker's favorability rating dropped to 37%. What is surprising, however, is that Pritzker's favorability rating downstate was still higher than Bailey's, which was 32%. The survey polled 770 likely voters and has an overall margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.

What do the latest polls say?

The Illinois Broadcasters Association and Research America Inc. released their poll last week giving Pritzker a 22-point lead. Out of 1,000 registered voters, 50% said they would vote for Pritzker, with only 27.7% voting for Bailey.

Other polls have shown Pritzker with a sizable lead, although not as big as the IBA poll. A recent Chicago Sun-Times/WBEZ poll showed Pritzker with a 15-point lead.

ABC7 Chicago Political Analyst Laura Washington said, "It's really bad news for Darren Bailey. At this point in the campaign, he should be shrinking the lead, not seeing it grow."

However, a poll from Osage Research, sponsored by Bailey's campaign, shows a much closer race, with Pritzker leading only by two percentage points.

How does FiveThirtyEight make its predictions?

FiveThirtyEight was founded in 2008 by Nate Silver. The site is known for collecting and analyzing poll data. According to The Factual, FiveThirtyEight, "relies heavily on data and uses extensive sourcing to substantiate claims."

FiveThirtyEight says that it aggregates polling data and weighs it on recency, sample size, and pollster rating. The forecast updates at least once daily or when new data comes in.

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