A ray of sunshine may be breaking through what's been a cloudy, even stormy spring for Alexi Giannoulias's U.S. Senate campaign.
According to a report from the Sun-Times, internal polling by the candidate shows him pulling to a tie with his Republican opponent, congressman Mark Kirk.
The last poll done by the Giannoulias campaign pollsters, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, was taken in the end of April. It showed the Giannoulias trailing Kirk by six points, consistent with much of the other polling in the race since March.
But if the new poll is to be believed, the worst of the worst had largely passed by that time. Since even before the primary was decided, Mark Kirk has focused almost exclusively on attacking Giannoulias over loans and business decisions made by Broadway Bank. The Giannoulias family owned the bank, and Alexi worked there until he became state treasurer.
The bank was closed by federal regulators on April 23 of this year. Following its closure, Giannoulias released a TV ad casting his lot in with the misfortune of other small-business owners, and blaming Kirk for supporting the Bush economic policies that, as Giannoulias had it, led to the current economic crisis.
The Democrat has also stepped up the heat on his opponent for voting against the Lilly Ledbetter Act, which supported equal pay for women in the workplace.
With the bank issue perhaps having run its course, it remains to be seen what the Kirk campaign's approach will be for the remaining six months of the race.
Also of note in the Sun-Times story:
The poll also showed that President Obama has high approval ratings in his adopted state, with 62 percent of all likely voters approving of the job Obama is doing in the White House.