New poll shows growing gap 1 week before runoff election

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Mayor Rahm Emanuel and mayoral challenger Jesus "Chuy" Garcia will face off in their final debate one week before the runoff election for Chicago mayor.

Tuesday, a new poll from the Chicago Tribune showed Mayor Emanuel doubling his lead over Garcia. But neither candidate wants his staff to take the Tribune poll numbers at face value; Garcia does not want his supporters demoralized, and Mayor Emanuel doesn't want his supporters to relax.

"Don't look at the polls, don't listen to them," Emanuel said before his first public event Tuesday morning. "I want my schedule doubled up between now and Election Day."

The Tribune surveyed 724 city registered voters on March 25 and 58 percent of them would choose Emanuel for a second term while only 30 percent chose Cook County Commissioner Garcia. Nine per cent were undecided.

The mayor said his 28 point lead in the poll will cause him to increase his campaign workload.

"I want to make sure we are out every day earning people's support, telling them our vision for the city, that we have a clear plan to move the city forward," he said.

"I think it's an outlier," Garcia said. "It's not consistent with most polling that's been done over the past five months."

Garcia's support fell five percentage points from a Tribune poll in early march. That's when the Emanuel campaign stepped up its negative ad attacks questioning the challenger's fiscal plan for the city.

At a campaign event Tuesday, Garcia said he will not worry about the poll.

"If I worried about it I'd be a wreck by Election Day," Garcia said. "I plan to get elected on April 7th and our information shows us that this is a tight race and we're gonna win."

A Garcia campaign strategist pointed out that both Jane Byrne and Harold Washington trailed in pre-election polls during the week before they won city elections. But this is a one-on-one race. The mayor not only is 28 points ahead, he is also well beyond the 50 percent threshold for victory in this media-sponsored poll.