* The Super PAC helping Mark Kirk’s Senate bid has released a poll to Greg Hinz. It was taken by GOP pollster Basswood Research…

The poll has Kirk edging ahead of Democratic nominee Tammy Duckworth 41.9 percent to 40.4 percent, within the poll’s plus or minus 3.5 percent margin of error, but better than the narrow 42.5 percent to 42 percent lead Duckworth held when Basswood last surveyed in April. […]

Normally I’d say an incumbent with only 41.9 percent backing is in some trouble. But this is a strange leader, and it’s hard to say without knowing more about the roughly one in five voters who is undecided.

In comparison to the Senate contest, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has a wide lead in her home state over the GOP’s Trump.

Specifically 46.4 percent of likely voters surveyed by telephone said they favor Clinton, 32.5 percent are for Trump, 5.2 percent for Libertarian Gary Johnson and 2.6 percent for the Green Party’s Jill Stein. Just over 13 percent were undecided.

Back on the Senate race, Basswood says Kirk is doing 22 points better than Trump among moderates, and 24 points better among women. Basswood’s research memo didn’t say what the relative margin is among Republicans and men, but it obviously is much smaller.

There are other Senate incumbents polling around 42 percent, so it’s not completely unusual, but he really ought to be doing better than that.

…Adding… I was just reminded by a “helpful” Democrat that the poll was taken when Kirk was the only Senate candidate on the airwaves with ads. Duckworth went up the next day.

* Eric Elk, who commissioned the poll, told me that the poll’s partisan makeup was Dem+10. The survey size was 800 and it was conducted July 12-13. No word yet on what percentage of respondents were mobile phone users, which is an important thing to know these days.

…Adding… Mobile phone users were 25 percent of respondents. Could be higher, but better than nothing.

The pollster’s memo is here.

…Adding More… Kirk is actually doing much better vis-à-vis Trump than some of his GOP colleagues…

“We’re not running presidential races,” said Ward Baker, the executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “We’re running sheriff races.”
So far, the divide is holding. Sen. Marco Rubio polls about 5 percentage points ahead of Trump in Florida, Sen. Rob Portman is 4 points up on him in Ohio, and Sen. Pat Toomey has a 6-point edge over the nominee in Pennsylvania, according to RealClearPolitics rolling averages.