CHICAGO – 270 Strategies, a leading national public engagement firm based in Chicago, today released a poll it commissioned finding a dead heat in tomorrow’s Chicago mayoral election. The poll conducted online by Change Research of 706 likely Chicago voters between February 22-24 found Bill Daley, Lori Lightfoot, and Toni Preckwinkle tied at 14%. Susana Mendoza, Gery Chico, and Willie Wilson followed with 10%, 9%, 9%, respectively.

Undecided voters, when asked to determine who they would vote for if they had to decide, choose Toni Preckwinkle (17%), Gery Chico (14%), and Bill Daley (14%). 22% of voters indicated they have voted early. Among those voters, Bill Daley and Paul Vallas lead with 12% each. Jerry Joyce, Toni Preckwinkle and Lori Lightfoot follow with 11% each. When asked to identify their second choice, 15% of voters name Bill Daley.

Voters identified Chicago’s financial stability as their top concern (18%), followed by crime (17%), and property taxes (14%). Although, a strong majority of voters (62%) also said that they consider breaking from the “Chicago political machine” at least “a little more important” than any single issue.

270, which is not affiliated with any of the mayoral campaigns, also gauged voters feelings about potential runoff matchups. In those hypothetical runoffs, Lightfoot leads Preckwinkle, Daley and Mendoza. Mendoza leads Preckwinkle and Daley. Daley leads Preckwinkle. 

A full polling memo on the results is below:

Change Research conducted an online poll February 22-24, 2019 in Chicago, Illinois. Using its Bias Correct Engine to attain a sample reflective of the city’s electorate, Change Research polled 706 likely special election voters. Post-stratification was performed on age, gender, ethnicity, and 2016 Presidential vote. With a sample size of 706, the margin of error of this survey is ± 3.7%, as traditionally calculated at 95% confidence interval.