Poll Conducted By SuperPAC Supporting Hollingsworth Shows Him With Big Lead In 9th District

Can Tennessean Trey Hollingsworth succeed in buying Indiana's 9th congressional district seat? If a poll taken by a SuperPAC supporting his campaign is any indication, Hollingsworth might succeed. That poll shows him with a substantial lead over a crowded field of opponents in next month's May primary election.

A Roll Call story says a poll taken by National Research, Inc. on behalf of Indiana Jobs Now, a pro-Hollingsworth SuperPAC, finds Hollingsworth leading the field of candidates with 28% of the vote. Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller trails far behind in second with 16% of the vote. State Sen. Erin Houchin and State Sen. Brent Waltz are in a virtual dead heat for third spot with 9% and 8% of the vote, respectively. Robert Hall is in fourth place with just 3% of the vote.

Given the fact that the previously unknown 32-year old multi-millionaire businessman didn't move to Indiana and become a resident of Jeffersonville, Indiana until last September, the huge media buy of ads taken out by his campaign and Indiana Jobs Now must be generating favorable perceptions of his candidacy. Roll Call's Simone Pathe spoke to residents of Jeffersonville about Hollingsworth and quickly figured out that most people have never met him and only know him from his campaign ads.

Roll Call notes that 9th District Republican leader Jamey Noel made a request of Hollingsworth to sign a loyalty pledge to the Republican Party since he had never cast a vote in a Republican primary either in Indiana or his home state of Tennessee. Hollingsworth insists it's only his political opponents raising concern about his ties to Indiana. Zoeller has called him a "political scam artist" and Houchin has accused his family of being behind the SuperPAC running ads in support of his campaign and attacking his opponents, particularly Zoeller, who is characterized as a career politician who is soft on immigration.

Hollingsworth told Pathe he had no idea who was behind the funding of Indiana Jobs Now. When asked about the poll taken on behalf of the SuperPAC, he said he had not heard about it. Hollingsworth says his first order of business if elected to Congress will be to enact term limits as part of his plan of "getting insiders out" of Congress.