Bob Dold!
The DCCC and ex-Rep. Brad Schneider have each released a new poll of Illinois' 10th Congressional District, and together they're designed to show that Schneider is in a strong position to win both the Democratic primary and knock off GOP Rep. Bob Dold! in the general. Schneider has the primary covered, with
a survey from Normington Petts that gives him a 54-18 lead on Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering and calls him the "prohibitive favorite."
However, not a single ad has been aired yet, and given that Schneider represented this district for a term, you'd expect him to have a considerable name recognition edge at this stage. A similar early poll from 2009 is instructive. Back then, Democrat Dan Seals, who'd previously run twice in this same district (like Schneider), released an internal showing him up 63-8 in the primary on then-state Rep. Julie Hamos. But after a hard-fought campaign, Seals won the nomination by less than 2 percent. (Seals went on to narrowly lose to Dold in the 2010 Republican wave.)
The final line of Normington's memo is also curious: "Schneider even wins an exchange over the Iran deal with Rotering." The wording of this "exchange" is not provided, but color us skeptical. Schneider's lost two major endorsements thanks to his opposition to the Iran nuclear agreement, and Democrats nationally are broadly supportive of the deal. Whether the issue winds up playing a role in the primary remains to be seen, but it's very hard to imagine that it'll turn out to be a plus for Schneider.
The DCCC's poll (apparently conducted in-house) also has some quirks. It puts Schneider ahead of Dold 37-29, which means there are an awful lot of undecideds. Apparently, those undecideds mostly lean Republican, because when they're "allocated according to likely partisanship" per the memo, Schneider's lead shrinks to 44-41. Unsurprisingly, the D-Trip, which is explicitly backing Schneider, did not include any numbers for Rotering. But the committee shouldn't be surprised if they wind up with her as their nominee instead.
