With less than a month until Illinois’ primary election, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is leading in a new poll of Illinois voters. But the field is still quite divided.
Sanders had 22% support among Democrats, with former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg just 5 points behind at 17%.
The poll of likely voters is from the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. It was taken from February 10-17 — before the most recent debate.
Next in the survey are former Vice President Joe Biden (14%), former South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigeig (13%), and Sens. Amy Kloubuchar (8%) and Elizabeth Warren (6%).
Andrew Yang, Tom Steyer and “Someone else” brought up the rear at 1% each.
The wildcard in the results is that 17% or Democrats are still undecided.
President Trump, meanwhile, has just a 39% approval rating in the state.
Pritzker’s Job Approval Up 11 Points Since Last Year
Just over half of Illinois voters approve of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s job performance.
Fifty-one percent either strongly or somewhat approve, versus 38 percent who disapprove. That’s up 11 pointes over where Pritzker was a year earlier.
![Gov. J.B. Pritzker enters the Illinois House of Representatives for his budget address.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/25ea79b/2147483647/strip/true/resize/880x^/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nprillinois.org%2Fsites%2Fwuis%2Ffiles%2Fstyles%2Fplaced_wide%2Fpublic%2F202002%2F2020-02-19-budget-address-01.jpg)
He’s most popular in Chicago and its suburbs and less so Downstate. And as one would expect, his support breaks down along party lines, with three in four Democrats giving him a thumbs up, and three in four Republicans turning thumbs down.
The poll also asked about Democratic Illinois U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, who’s up for re-election this year. His numbers were similar to Pritzker’s — with 52 percent approving of his job performance.
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