Mr. Willson, I am going to suggest a more simplified approach to your analysis.

First, throw out Underwood’s fundraising for 2020 election cycle at this point. A better comparison of the Republican primary field with Underwood metrics is her 2018 primary.

She shared this perspective last summer at her California interview, pointing out she won her primary nomination in a 7 person field raising $350K.

Another adjustment I’d suggest is Oberweis spend.

$500K of that spend was repaying himself back on January 15, and bringing down his loan total from $1M to $500K.

That $500K was not used in any way except to inflate his Cash On Hand metric to window dress his year end report to show prospective donors he has a huge lead in the race, money wise.

Those two factors, let’s look at that Oberweis tracking poll you cited which was done back in late January.

Numbers you cited were accurate, and let’s include both James Marter & Ted Gradel were both at 2%. Evans and Catella were not polled.

I know Oberweis, Rezin and Gradel have all done polling. They use the polling to make decisions how to spend.

None of the 3 candidates have released their polling results apart from Oberweis’ late January poll, but their campaign activity shows that their internal polling was telling them.

Now, since the 1st debate, Oberweis has consistently messaged about Rezin not living in the district.

Then by mid February, Rezin wins two of the three newspaper endorsements to date, including the venerable Chicago Tribune.

Within a week, Oberweis has a negative TV ad against Rezin and an attack mailer exclusively on her out of district residency.

What did Oberweis’ polling tell him in mid-February?

Attack.

Gradel and his PAC ally started his mailing campaign vaguely running against “career politicians” and then naming Oberweis as one and then, adding Rezin this week.

Conjecture, both Oberweis and Gradel started attacking Rezin directly, so Rezin is doing better than a 30 point polling deficit at end of January.

What does all of this have to do with Lauf?

I and many others gave her up for dead after the Batavia debate on January 30th and her ERA gaffe, followed by Jeff Ward’s scathing articles of her.

But she & her volunteer base has responded by growing, giving time and significant money and expanding and praying, and she is on track to spend $250K total for the primary.

Remember Underwood’s primary win 2 years ago with a $350K budget?

While Lauf is not, and likely will not, be on TV, her social media presence, with a Twitter following now over 56K, showed up in Oberweis’ January poll (polling higher than Marter, who’s known in disteict), and will likely show up in the primary vote.

I don’t think it will be enough for her to win, but a third place finish not outside possibility.

Gradel has now started doing TV advertising and according to the numbers above, he has about $420K cash on hand through Feb. 26.

But with Gradel, and as written elsewhere, at least $105K of that $420K cannot be used in the primary because it was raised from donors who gave over the maximum $2.8K for the primary.

With $315K, Gradel can do a lot of damage, and he must spend it in the next 10 days.

Thus far, neither Oberweis or Rezin have gone after Gradel through direct mail or TV, so their internal polling is telling them voters are not going to Gradel.

So where could they be going if not Gradel, Oberweis or Rezin?

Remember the observations from this past Monday night about Lauf taking direct fire at the Huntley debate from Oberweis as well as Evans?

Hypothesis, Lauf’s surge includes voters turned away from Oberweis, and possibly Rezin, and part of the fundraising surge which was confirmed yesterday.

Hope this helps.

Mr. Willson,

I don’t know if the way you phrased the “deal” in a “heads I win, tails you lose” was an accident or on purpose.

Whatever the case, some things have changed in the past hour.

Sue Rezin’s 2nd newspaper mailer is hitting the street starting today, and it is a hard hitting piece, and 95% of the fire is directed at Jim Oberweis and the Democrats.

One page is dedicated to Ted Gradel, and looks like it was dropped in at the last minute, given the Ted Gradel PAC ally targeted Rezin by name in a recent mailer.

I nicknamed Rezin the “Bull-fighter” and the “velvet hammer”, and the new mailer has elements of both, but the biggest quality shown is Rezin’s toughness, and if you take a shot at her, she is going to hit back, and she does on Gradel in the new mailing.

You can preview the contents of the Rezin mailer by clicking this new section of her campaign website:

https://rezinforcongress.com/opponents/

As for the deal, just admit I’m right and you’re wrong….no, that’s how others would do, not me.

Let’s just work together to make our community, our country and our world a better place to live, no matter who wins this election.