Ahead of an end-of-month fundraising filing deadline, Rep. Tammy Duckworth’s, D-Ill., campaign for Senate in Illinois sent out an email touting a recent poll that put her four points ahead of incumbent Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill.
But a Public Policy Polling survey from July had Duckworth, D-Ill., up by six points, leading some to suggest that her lead may be shrinking a year out from election day.
The poll from End Citizens United PAC released earlier this month shows Duckworth besting Kirk 45 to 41 percent among almost 1,000 Illinois registered voters. The margin of error is 3.23 percent.
The Public Policy Polling results from earlier this year showed Duckworth up by a 42 to 36 percent margin, although it found a large percentage of voters in the state had no opinion about the second term representative and wounded war veteran.
Kirk’s campaign has spent the summer trying to tie Duckworth to an ongoing legal case looking at whether or not she violated state ethic codes while working at the Illinois Veterans Affairs Department. The effort looks to tie Duckworth to other corrupt Illinois politicians, said Jamie Dominguez, an adviser at Northwestern University’s political science department.
Kirk must walk a fine line in his attacks of Duckworth, both because she is a woman and because she lost both her legs when her helicopter was shot down in Iraq, Dominguez said.
“He has to be very careful … of not offending,” he said. “He’s holding firm on the ethics case that’s hovering over Duckworth’s head right now, but I think she’s going to be able to overcome it.”
