"Not Sure" Is the Clear Winner In 10th District Dem Poll

The first Dem poll of the new year in the hot race for the Tenth Congressional District here in Illinois was conducted between January 3-4, 2012, of 410 likely Democratic voters, and the results are not too surprising:

Ilya Sheyman...........23%

Brad Schneider.........21%

John Tree...................5%

Vivek Bavda...............2%

Not sure.......................49%

The poll itself was conducted by Public Policy Polling, but was commissioned by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) PAC, which is supporting Ilya Sheyman. The relatively small poll sample, and the huge margin of error (+/- 4.8%), leads us to think we ought not put too much stock into this particular poll. Also, the fact that Ilya Sheyman and Brad Schneider are statistically tied leads one to think that aside from the suggestion (pushed by PCCC) that Democratic voters in the 10th are looking for a 'bold progressive' candidate, there might not be much here to talk about.

However, some of the policy/position questions asked and the responses are rather interesting; for example, when asked about whether Israel was at the top of voters' concerns, only 4% responded yes, compared to 37% each for Wall Street 'accountability' and job creation.

The biggest take-away from this poll is that it's still wide open, and all of the candidates have some work to do to get their message out. As we have been saying for some time, Ilya Sheyman still seems to be the front-runner with the advantage of the best ground-game and volunteer base. He's positioned himself as the most leftist, 'progressive' candidate (whatever that means), so if he can finally start raising some real money to get in people's mailboxes, he's got a real good chance. Veteran and businessman John Tree had a surprisingly poor showing in this poll; despite hiring some expensive consultants and trying to make a big splash out of the box, he doesn't seem to be getting much traction, at least according to this poll (which, again, we're not putting a lot of faith in).

Since a group supporting Sheyman paid for the poll, you can bet that he is touting it, but Schneider is not taking it lying down. So far, no response from the Tree campaign that we know of. He's probably just trying to forget it exists. Or maybe his expensive handlers haven't told him yet, for fear that Tree will get some sense and pull out, and cut off his paid hack team's gravy train.

"Not Sure", of course, is the real winner here. Where's a Dan Seals when the Dems need him? Hahahahahah.