Some recent Chicago Tribune poll results appear to indicate that support for raising the minimum wage in the state's largest city may be enough to increase voter turnout for a non-binding November ballot referendum.

The poll found that 84 percent of registered Chicago voters support a city-task-force recommendation to increase the minimum wage to $13 per hour over the next three years. According to the poll, 78 percent of whites and 92 percent of African Americans and even 71 percent of Chicagoans making more than $100,000 a year back the plan.

Democrats have been hoping to use the referendum - which asks about raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour - as a tool to help spur turnout in what is rapidly developing into a big Republican year. And with the Tribune's numbers backing a much higher minimum wage, it does seem likely that the issue can be effective, particularly among African Americans. Support above 70 to 80 percent is generally seen as having a ballot impact. Get above 90 and it's sure to drive votes. Then again, the comparatively "stingy" state-ballot proposal, when compared to the Chicago proposal, might garner less enthusiasm.

As you might know by now, the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago has agreed to drop all felony charges against Illinois state Representative LaShawn Ford (D-Chicago) and has charged him instead with a simple misdemeanor.

The original 17 federal counts of bank fraud and submitting false information to a bank each carried a potential sentence of 30 years in prison and a $1-million fine - meaning that Ford was essentially looking at spending the rest of his natural life behind bars for allegedly obtaining a credit line greater than his eligibility and using part of the proceeds for things unrelated to the loan's stated purpose.

The new charge of delivering a false tax return to the IRS is calculated in the plea agreement to be a term of zero to six months.

What the heck happened here?

Back in January, state Senator Michael Frerichs formally kicked off his campaign for Illinois state treasurer and posted a video online touting the fact the he'd ended "free, lifetime health care for state legislators."

Actually, Frerichs had voted against that bill in the General Assembly. Frerichs' campaign had to pull the video and replace it with a new one, even though he'd been planning his formal launch for at least a year.

In April, Frerichs appeared to flip-flop on his longstanding position that the comptroller's and treasurer's offices should be merged.

Frerichs told a WBBM Radio interviewer: "People have said to me, 'Wouldn't it just be a lot more efficient if we just had one financial officer?' And I've said yes, we could become very efficient, efficient like the city of Dixon, Illinois, who just had one chief financial officer and she was able, from this small little town, over several years to take something like $52 million away from them." He was referring to Rita Crundwell, who in 2012 pleaded guilty to embezzling the money. Frerichs was quickly forced to restate his support for the office merger.

A new Capitol Fax/We Ask America poll found Republican Bruce Rauner leading Democratic Governor Pat Quinn 51 to 39 percent. That's pretty much the same margin the pollster found for another client a month ago.

The poll of 940 likely voters was taken July 8 and has a margin of error of 3.2 percent. Thirty percent of the calls were made to mobile phones.

Quinn has repeatedly blasted Rauner for using complicated loopholes to avoid some taxes. I wanted to test the issue.

"Republican Bruce Rauner's tax returns for 2010 and 2011 show that despite making around $55 million, he was not required to pay Social Security or Medicare taxes," respondents were told.

Sixty percent said that made them less likely to vote for Rauner, 20 percent said it made no difference, and another 20 percent said it made them more likely to vote for the candidate.