Joel Gratz at Forward Strategies, who has been consulting for the Parisi campaign, has just released a poll which confirms what I've been hearing from various sources for a couple weeks now: Parisi is cruising towards an easy victory in the primary with 28 percent support. What is news, however, is that Eileen Bruskewitz, the only conservative candidate in the race, is in second place, with 18 percent. Here's a link to the poll.
From what I've heard from sources, Bruskewitz recently overtook Joe Wineke for the second place spot. While Wineke, who is currently at 15 percent, likely still has better name-recognition than Bruskewitz throughout the county, Bruskewitz has the benefit of being the only conservative candidate in the race, a fact that guarantees her the votes of many of the 25 percent of the electorate that the poll identified as Republican-leaning.
I would be hesitant to accept these numbers as anything but a rough indication of the race. As a result, the only conclusions I'm willing to draw are that Parisi is winning and Zach Brandon, who is polling at 6 percent, will not be making it through the primary. Although I tend to think that Bruskewitz's monopoly on the GOP base gives her an advantage over Wineke and McDonell, the polling numbers certainly indicate that either of those three has a chance.
I'm going to try to link to this poll. I'm very bad at linking to documents. I'll figure it out though.
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