* Remember when I asked yesterday about the next shoe to drop? Bernie has it…

In addition to campaign-paid mileage reimbursements received by state Sen. SAM McCANN, R-Plainview, during his time in the General Assembly, he has received more than $19,600 in mileage reimbursements from the state since entering the Senate in 2011.

A State Journal-Register story Feb. 14 detailed the payments McCann received from his campaign that included $38,000 in just the past year, which at a reimbursement rate of 57.5 cents per mile would mean he drove more than 66,000 miles in that year.

That story, which also included “grouped expenditures” that McCann took from his campaign fund, has become fodder for anti-McCann ads being run by Liberty Principles PAC, an independent expenditure group whose chairman and treasurer is Chicago radio talk-show host DAN PROFT. The group has spent more than $1.3 million to help McCann’s opponent in the March 15 primary, BRYCE BENTON of Springfield.

A check of state records shows that McCann also submitted vouchers for state mileage payments totaling more than $19,600, with amounts ranging from $4,755 in 2011 to $2,594 for part of 2015. The reimbursement rate was at 51 cents per mile for part of 2011, but has mostly been at 39 cents per mile.

Can he really be logging all those miles?

* Bernie also cribbed my poll…

Meanwhile, Capitol Fax reported that a Capitol Fax/We Ask America poll done Tuesday of 645 registered Republican voters put the 50th Senate District March 15 primary race at about 43 percent for Benton, 41.4 percent for McCann and 15.6 percent undecided. The margin of error was 3.86 percent.

It was likely GOP voters, but the ads are obviously working.