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Tribune has two new polls * Updated X2 *

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* The excitement from the presidential campaign has sucked all the oxygen out of other races. As subscribers know (and will learn again Monday) this state’s attorney’s race isn’t the only Cook County or Chicago campaign with huge numbers of undecideds with just days to go before the election…

Just days before Tuesday’s primary, a new Tribune/WGN-TV poll shows a wide-open race for the Democratic nomination for Cook County state’s attorney with none of the six contenders in the increasingly bitter battle able to claim support from more than a fraction of voters.

Almost half of the likely Democratic voters surveyed, 44 percent, said they were undecided about who should be the nominee for the opening created when State’s Atty. Dick Devine decided not to seek re-election.

Cook County Commissioner Larry Suffredin held a narrow edge, with support from 17 percent of voters, the poll showed. Chicago Alds. Tom Allen (38th) and Howard Brookins (21st) each had 11 percent, as did Anita Alvarez, the No. 3 official in Devine’s office. Devine’s top assistant, Robert Milan, had 3 percent and Tommy Brewer, a defense lawyer and former FBI agent, had 2 percent.

The poll of 404 likely voters, conducted Tuesday through Thursday, had an error margin of 5 percentage points.

404 likely voters? Mother Tribune cheaped out. Still, the mathematical probability that Suffredin leads his three closest competitors is 98.9 percent.

* Meanwhile, speaking of the presidentials…

Favorite-son Sen. Barack Obama and Arizona Sen. John McCain each hold a better than 2-to-1 edge over their closest presidential rivals entering the Illinois primary, but many voters say they’re still undecided or could change their mind before casting a ballot Tuesday, a new Tribune/WGN-TV poll shows. […]

The survey found Obama, a first-term Illinois senator from Chicago, with the support of 55 percent of likely Democratic primary voters. Clinton, a two-term New York senator born in Chicago and raised in suburban Park Ridge, had 24 percent.

On the Republican side, McCain, a veteran Arizona senator, had the backing of 43 percent of likely GOP primary voters in the state, compared with 20 percent for former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, 15 percent for former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and 4 percent for Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. […]

If the state’s Democrats and Republicans can agree on one thing, it’s that a majority of them believe that jobs and the economy are the most important issue. Asked their top two issues of concern, 62 percent of Democrats and 55 percent of Republicans listed the economy and its effect on employment.

Democrats cited affordable health care and the Iraq war as their second and third top concerns. Republicans made illegal immigration the issue of next highest concern behind the economy, with the Iraq war also reflected third.

…Adding… I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better campaign video that wasn’t actually created by a campaign…