New Poll Shows Casten Surging Past Roskam 49% to 44% with One Month Until Election Day

(Downers Grove, IL) October 8, 2018 – Today, the the Chicago Sun-Times reported on a new poll of Sixth Congressional District voters showing Sean Casten extending his lead over career politician Peter Roskam to 49% to 44%.

“It’s clear that Sixth District voters are tired of out-of-touch career politician Peter Roskam, who has refused to stand up to Donald Trump and been a rubber stamp for his agenda in Congress at our expense,” said Greg Bales, Campaign Manager for Sean Casten. “They know that Peter Roskam voted to kick 30,000 people in his district off their health insurance and passed a tax bill that raises taxes on middle-class families while corporations and the wealthy get huge tax breaks.”

“Peter Roskam and his allies false attacks on Sean aren’t working, and now voters want to replace Peter Roskam with someone who is going to protect health care for people with pre-existing conditions, work to make college affordable, be an independent check and balance on Donald Trump, believe women, and support a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions.”

The poll shows that the millions of dollars of negative attack ads from Peter Roskam and his special interest allies have failed to stick. Instead, Sean Casten is becoming better known and better liked with each passing day while Roskam’s job approval and favorability ratings have plummeted over the past month.

The poll found more 6th District voters feel negatively personally about Roskam (40%) than positively (30%). And his job approval rating has slipped  over the past three weeks, from 42% approve, 43% disapprove, to 43% approve, 49% disapprove, a 5 point drop, with nearly half of voters now disapproving.

Meanwhile, the poll found Sean Casten has successfully introduced himself to most voters and weathered the first waves of misleading negative attacks. Three in four (75%) voters know Sean Casten, up from 62% in early September. And unlike Roskam, the more that voters get to know Sean Casten the more they like him, giving him personal ratings of 34% positive and 23% negative.

Casten also has a significant advantage in voter enthusiasm and commitment, which are critical factors in midterm elections. Casten holds a full 13-point advantage over Roskam (54% to 41%) among voters who say they are certain to vote in November. Donald Trump remains deeply unpopular in the 6th district (56% negative, 35% positive) and Roskam’s unwavering support for Donald Trump on what matters most to voters  is sinking his campaign. A full memo on the poll is available here.

With momentum clearly on Casten’s side – he raised twice as much as Roskam in the third quarter –  Inside Elections moved the race to “Tilt Dem” and Politico became the fifth key political prognosticator to join Cook Political Report, Election Projection, and Larry Sabato all to move the race from lean Republican to toss-up. The previous Casten campaign poll, as reported by the Chicago Sun-Times, and the New York Times latest public polling confirm that momentum.