While the Republicans say the pollsters are contacting the wrong people, the fact remains that three polls released last week had the Illinois governor's race within 2 percentage points. And five polls released in the past month have shown it to be a single-digit race.
The Chicago Tribune's pollster had Democratic Governor Pat Quinn leading Republican state Senator Bill Brady 39-38 last week, which is a narrower margin than its 5-point Brady lead a month ago. A CNN/Time poll had Brady up by 2, and a Democratic Governor's Association poll had Brady up by one. Public Policy Polling had Brady with a 7-point lead.
The Republicans say the "universe" is skewed on all these polls. They believe that Republicans could actually outnumber Democrats come Election Day by a narrow margin. At the very least, they say, those other polls just skew too far Democratic.
If the Republicans are right, it would be the first time their party would outnumber or come close to outnumbering Democrats in any Illinois election in a very long time. This is a weird year, so nobody really knows who's correct at the moment. Still, you need to keep the GOP's strong objections very much in mind as we head into the final weeks of this campaign.