The second Mansueto Institute/NORC ChicagoSpeaks wave put Giannoulias at 25% among likely voters and Johnson at about 14%, with 34% undecided and no other candidate in double digits.
The second Mansueto Institute/NORC ChicagoSpeaks wave — fielded in mid-September, released Oct. 19, n=1,108 Chicago adults — put Alexi Giannoulias at 25% among likely voters and Mayor Brandon Johnson at about 14%, with 34% undecided and no other candidate in double digits.
Johnson’s approval was 22%, with disapproval at 53%. An incumbent at 14% in a first-choice ballot question, with a third of the electorate undecided, is an incumbent in serious trouble — but the undecided bloc is also the whole race: it is larger than any candidate’s support.
The poll landed the same week as the Q3 campaign-finance filings, which showed Giannoulias with $19.15 million cash on hand against Johnson’s $379,471 — roughly 50-to-1.
Polls this far out measure the shape of the race, not its outcome. The shape here is brutal for an incumbent: a named challenger nearly doubling him, a third of voters uncommitted, and a 22% approval rating. The question for February is whether the undecided third breaks toward a challenger or stays home.
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