EAST MOLINE – Polling released Wednesday by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and Esther for Congress campaign shows King at 44.2%, Bustos at 48.5%, and 7.3% undecided. Voters continue to react favorably toward Esther Joy King’s message, with nearly three quarters of voters recognizing her name and a more than 2:1 positive image. The poll, conducted by The Tarrance Group, is a summary of findings from a survey of voters in Illinois’ 17th Congressional District conducted Oct. 10-12, 2020. The results reflect a survey of 418 voters in the district, with a margin of error of +/-4.9%.
The polling was initially reported in the insider daily, Politico Playbook, which also noted that Bustos has recently begun airing negative attack ads against King, something Bustos said she wouldn’t do but is a strong indicator of concern within her campaign.
“Illinois has lost an enormous number of family farms and good jobs since Cheri Bustos was elected nearly a decade ago,” said Eric Anderson, Esther for Congress campaign manager. “While the people of the district are struggling to get their lives back and get the economy restarted, Cheri Bustos continues to play partisan politics. It’s what she’s best at, and the people she’s supposed to represent it are tired of it.”
King, who is running on a platform of bipartisan cooperation, jumpstarting the economy and recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic, and solving the healthcare dilemma after decades of political games, stands in stark contrast to Bustos, the campaign says. During nearly a decade in Congress, Bustos passed only three bills, all re-naming post offices.
"[Bustos] has proven adept at the insider’s game of partisan politics, ascending to become Nancy Pelosi’s political general and the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the partisan political arm of House Democrats," the press release says.
"The cynical Bustos attack ad would be funny if it wasn’t full of such blatant lies," Anderson said. "For Cheri, the consummate D.C. insider, to claim that D.C. insiders recruited Esther to run is pretty dark. Bustos has done nothing to safeguard Social Security, and Esther has vowed to protect it. Bustos has done nothing to safeguard Medicare, and she’s trying to take away private healthcare from people who have fought hard to earn it, which Esther also opposes. Cheri has to own her record of selling out our values to support the leftist Democratic agenda, which makes good jobs here at home harder and harder to find."
King, a JAG officer in the U.S. Army Reserve, announced her candidacy to represent the Illinois 17th Congressional District on Aug. 21, 2019, and won the March 17, 2020, primary by a margin of 65.1% to 34.9%, is a vocal advocate for improving constituent service and representing the values and priorities of central, western, and northwestern Illinois.
