* David Hoffman is, indeed, surging, but he’s still in third place according to the new Tribune poll. December Tribune poll results are in parentheses…

Giannoulias 34 (31)
Jackson 19 (17)
Hoffman 16 (9)
Meister 1 (1)
Undecided 13 (21)

Most of the undecideds appear to be breaking to Hoffman, but a lot of this movement is within the margin of error, so be cautious.

From the Trib…

Jackson, the lone African-American contender in the Democratic contest, has the support of 48 percent of black voters, which has helped keep her virtually even with Giannoulias among Chicago voters. But Jackson’s percentage of black support has not increased significantly since December, while Giannoulias’ backing from African-Americans has roughly doubled to nearly a quarter of the black vote.

Giannoulias also holds a healthy edge over his rivals of 2-to-1 or better among suburban Cook County and collar-county voters.

Experience has shown that an African-American candidate can go from 50 percent to 85 percent of the black vote in a heartbeat late in the game, so keep that in mind.

From the Trib’s pollster…

Three major candidates have gained a few points in name recognition and favorable ratings. Former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman has been critical in TV ads of Alexi Giannoulias about Bright Start college fund losses due to Oppenheimer Core Fund investments in mortgage-backed securities, plus questionable loan recipients from his family’s bank. However, there is not much indication this led to increased unfavorability for Giannoulias, +3 points.

* On to the Republicans…

Kirk 47 (41)
Hughes 8 (3)
Thomas 3 (3)
Martin 3 (2)
Undecided 35 (46)

Tribune…

More than half of GOP voters said they agreed with the tea party movement, including nearly 70 percent of those who describe themselves as very conservative. But that hasn’t translated into support for Hughes. The survey found Kirk being supported by 48 percent of Republicans who said they backed the tea party movement while Hughes got only 10 percent support.

While one-third of likely GOP primary voters said they mostly agree with Kirk on the issues, nearly a quarter of GOP voters said they believe he isn’t conservative enough — a percentage similar to six weeks ago.

Trib’s pollster…

Kirk’s opponents are still known by only half or less of primary voters. Voter opinions of any of his six opponents - good or bad - ranges from only 4% to 16%. That means only 4%-16% know enough about any of them to have an opinion. The level of undecided voters remains very high just two weeks before Election Day. Unlike the race for governor, none of his opponents have run or been elected to state office so unknown alternatives to Kirk leads to many who remain undecided – 35%.

* Hughes released his own poll, according to CQ Politics…

With eight days left until the Feb. 2nd primary, real estate developer Patrick Hughes (R) has significantly increased his support in a new survey from his campaign - although he still trails GOP front-runner Rep. Mark Steven Kirk by a 20-point margin in the open-seat Illinois Senate race.

Hughes scored 22 percent with likely GOP voters in a survey sponsored by his own campaign, while Kirk scored 42 percent. Every other GOP candidate in the race had less than 5 percent support in the uninformed ballot poll, while 27 percent of survey respondents said they were undecided.

Hughes, who has already given upwards of $250,000 of his own funds to the race, is considered to be Kirk’s cheif primary competition, but has been badly trailing the five-term lawmaker in prior public polls.

The Jan. 21-22 Shamrock Polling survey took the opinions of 1,104 likely Republican voters.

I’ve never heard of Shamrock Polling, and a Google search comes up almost empty, except for that CQ story and one person who claims he received an e-mail from the company, which allegedly charges $500 a month for 1,000-person polls.