Second Joliet poll gives D’Arcy big edge in mayor race

Another poll is showing Terry D’Arcy with a big lead in the Joliet mayors’ race.

The Joliet poll was one of four conducted by Inverness-based political consulting firm Cor Strategies in a look at mayoral races in Illinois cities outside Chicago.

Describing the Joliet numbers released Wednesday as “the most surprising result” in its polling of the four cities, Cor Strategies said D’Arcy is leading O’Dekirk by 49% of the vote to 20%.

The questions or cross tabulation of the poll were not released Thursday, nor was the cost spent on the poll by Cor Strategies.

The poll conducted March 18-21 follows a D’Arcy campaign announcement last week that a pollster it hired showed him with an 18-point margin lead over O’Dekirk.

Tycee Bell gets about 10% of the vote in both polls.

Both polls showed a large percentage of voters were undecided. But the Cor Strategies’ poll also indicated undecided voters were about evenly split as to whether they were leaning toward D’Arcy or O’Dekirk.

With undecided voters forced to make a choice, D’Arcy led O’Dekirk by 61% to 29%, according to Cor Strategies.

Cor Strategies said the poll was not connected with any campaign, but O’Dekirk tied the poll to D’Arcy.

“We’re in good shape,” O’Dekirk said. “I’m not interested in any nonsense coming out of the D’Arcy campaign.”

He added that media reporting the poll numbers “are going to look foolish” on Election Day, which is April 4.

D’Arcy said he first heard of the Cor Strategies poll on Thursday.

“That’s nothing I had anything to do with,” he said. “I’m going on in this race like it’s neck-and-neck.”

The Cor Strategies poll including 514 responses from phone calls and text messages.

Johnathon Giesecke, political consultant with Cor Strategies, said the poll reflects the challenges of winning a third term for mayor and the financial resources the D’Arcy campaign has for its challenge.

“Running for a third term as mayor is hard,” Giesecke said.

O’Dekirk, however, said, “Cor Strategies just did a video last week saying that I was going to win this election.”

Giesecke said that prediction came from what Cor Strategies was hearing from political contacts in Joliet before the poll was done.

“The difference between last week and what we’re reporting today is we have hard numbers,” he said. “Last week was from what we heard from people on the ground.”