* It’s no surprise that Sheila Simon’s family name and her statewide position are helping her in the early polling for attorney general. But she only has 26 percent at this point. Not great. And half the electorate is undecided, although with all the men talking about a run, she’s looking good there, too. From a Celinda Lake poll…

On the initial ballot, Simon garners 26% of the vote, with
all other likely candidates in the single digits

David Hoffman draws 5%,

Kwame Raoul 4%,

Jesse Ruiz 2%, and Jack Franks 1%.

Fully 50% of the electorate is undecided, underscoring the room for movement in this race.

Fully 58% of the primary electorate is female, including 66% of the undecided vote. This demographic profile obviously benefits Simon as the only woman in the race.

* More…

The poll, conducted by Lake Research Partners (the same pollster used by Lisa Madigan), shows that likely Democratic primary voters have a 43 percent favorable rating of Simon (7 percent unfavorable, the remaining no opinion or unknown) and 73 percent of Democratic voters have a favorable opinion of Sheila Simon’s late father — U.S. Sen. Paul Simon.

Notice how Simon continually tries to lock herself to Lisa Madigan. She’s doing this in fundraising calls as well.