Trial balloon time!
It looks like we have the results from the $24,000 Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) spent on polling last quarter.
And they look good. The Chicago Sun-Times’s Lynn Sweet reports:
Schakowsky pollster Celinda Lake of Lake Research Partners surveyed 600 likely February 2010 Democratic voters April 19-22, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent. A poll shows the race is up for grabs with Schakowky (sic) at 24 percent, 22 percent for Giannoulias and 18 percent for Burris, with 36 percent undecided.
An interesting note: The poll — according to a summary — showed Giannoulias has better name recognition. Giannoulias has all but declared for the seat, raising a little over $1 million in a month.
One thought: It seems odd that a congresswoman representing roughly 5 percent of the state is at 24 percent in a poll. Yes, she’s something of a liberal icon in Chicago; but 24 percent seems high. Is her name ID even that high?
Sweet also writes that Schakowsky told her she would make a final decision on the race by June 8. Schwakowsky already told The Hill that she would run for the seat in a special election, but calls for Sen. Roland Burris’s (D-Ill.) resignation have fallen off, so it’s unlikely that he’d vacate the seat now.
-Aaron Blake