I wrote about this in this morning’s Capitol Fax, but since Melissa Bean’s campaign has issued a press release, I figured it was safe to disclose it now.

LAKE ZURICH – With three weeks to go before the election, Melissa Bean has surged in the polls and is now in a statistical dead heat with U.S. Rep. Phil Crane in the campaign to represent Illinois’ 8th Congressional district.  Melissa Bean has closed to within two points, 44%-46%, against Crane, the most senior Republican in the House of Representatives, according to polling released by the Bean campaign. [Snip]

Since June, Bean has increased her support among all partisan groups, especially the pivotal groups of Independents and Republicans. [Snip]

Just 37% rated Crane’s performance as a Member of Congress as “excellent” or “good” while 47% rated his performance as “only fair” or “poor.”  Crane has a favorable rating of just 38% positive and 29% negative. [Snip]

The results are a summary of findings from a telephone survey conducted by Bennett, Petts and Blumenthal among 400 likely voters in the Eighth Congressional District of Illinois. Interviews were conducted October 6-7, 2004. The sampling error for this survey is plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

That’s a pretty high margin of error.