New Poll Shows Encouraging Trends for Congressman Mark Kirk, Who Maintains Lead Over Alexi Giannoulias in Illinois Race for U.S. Senate

Tonight Chicago Tribune political reporter Rick Pearson is stating that the results of a new Tribune/WGN poll in the U.S. Senate race shows "encouraging trends" for Congressman Mark Kirk, although the race is still very close:

Kirk held a 44 percent to 41 percent advantage over Giannoulias, but the slight edge fell within the poll's 3.7 percentage-point margin of error. Another 7 percent were undecided — a key category of voters both parties are spending millions of dollars to sway with President Barack Obama's former Senate seat on the line in a nationally significant contest.

Despite the statistical tightness of the race, the survey revealed several encouraging trends for Kirk and some troubling concerns for Giannoulias. Independents, suburban voters and Republicans are all moving toward Kirk. [snip]

The poll of 700 registered voters, conducted last Monday through Friday, also found that Green Party candidate LeAlan Jones at 5 percent support and Libertarian Mike Labno at 4 percent.

This would all be consistent with what I've been hearing on the street from various sources. Add to that, the Kirk campaign is going to be spending every last dime of their $4 million+ warchest at pretty much the same time Alexi's campaign stash is running dry.

The Trib poll was also conducted before the full impact of Alexi's potential game-changing flub of accusing Mark Kirk of committing "economic treason" likely could be measured as of last Thursday. Look for Alexi's negatives to take a nice nose-dive after that.

This will be a fight to the finish, no doubt, but on election night, I think we will be having reason to celebrate.