Thanks to Capitol Fax Blog for the link to Public Opinion Strategies memo describing its poll findings in the 11th district race between Democrat incumbent Debbie Halvorson and challenger Adam Kinzinger.

51%-40% for the Republican with the ratio getting better as the less interested voters are pealed off.

Rich Miller, who writes Capitol Fax Blog, cautions that the same pollster was way off in the November election two years ago.

This is the second incumbent Democrat to come out on the short end of an internal poll run by a Republican opponent.

But this is the second incumbent whose opponent’s pollster finds in trouble.

The first was Phil Hare, who represents northwestern Illinois’ 17th District south of 16th District Congressman Don Manzullo. Hare’s opponent is Bobby Schilling.

The question locally is whether 14th District incumbent Bill Foster and 8th District Congresswoman Melissa Bean are in danger as well.

Do challengers Randy Hultgren and Joe Walsh have a chance?

In the 11th district, Glen Bolger writes,

“…26% saying things in the country are going in the right direction and 68% believing the country has gotten off on the wrong track.”

A generic Republican would have won the district 48%-32%, with 20% undecided, in early August.

With regard to Halvorson’s image, the pollster reports her favorables are now at 35% favorable, lower than her 39% unfavorable rating.

This might be significant in Bean’s race, since it shows a woman, with her built-in advantage of about five percentage points, can lose favor, if there is enough negative light shined on her.

In Halvorson’s case, I believe the negative publicity has come from her misplaced criticism of Republican Adam Kinzinger’s war record.

The challenger got reassigned after the primary election, but his web site was not updated.

“Big deal!” I think the constituency concluded while also deciding that Halvorson’s criticism was far too harsh.

No similar negative publicity has resulted for Bean.

And, Bean has had the advantage of hundreds of thousands of dollars of favorably television ads over three elections. Halvorson is in her first term, having replaced Republican Jerry Weller in the Illinois Barack Obama landslide.

There’s something call a “new person” rating. Apparently, it refers to the number of people who think a new person would be best for the office.

Halvorson now has a 33% level of support against 55% wanting a new person.

Methodology for the survey?

400 likely voters having a margin of error of +4.9% in 95 out of 100 cases.