House Freedom Action (HFA), a PAC tied to the conservative House Freedom Caucus and which has endorsed Rep. Jody Barrett in the seventh congressional district GOP primary, is promoting a new poll  showing Barrett leading the pack. However, with early voting starting Wednesday, over two-thirds of voters remain undecided!

HFA compared their 322 tracking surveys completed Tuesday to Friday last week with the 330 from two weeks prior, and before HFA’s $150,000 Independent Expenditure started.

The new HFA survey shows Barrett with 11.2% support, followed by Matt Van Epps (4.7%), Lee Reeves (3.4%), and Gino Bulso (3.0%), while 77% remain undecided.

HFA says Barrett’s Name ID surged from 6-1 favorable to unfavorable (39% ID) to 19-3 with 70% ID and is 26-2 (77% ID) with very conservative voters. Despite both Reeves and Bulso each spending six-figures plus, their numbers remain stagnant in the HFA tracking survey. Van Epps’s ad barrage over the last two days boosted his favorables slightly, sending him into a distant second over the Reeves and Bulso, according to the HFA numbers.

HFA claims the brutal anti-Barrett ad barrage from Club for Growth makes this race a binary choice: Jody Barrett, or someone else. Right now, HFA says Van Epps, Reeves and Bulso are competing to be the “someone else.” 

Political strategists point out that the massive number of undecided voters at this stage of the race, with early voting starting this week and the primary election date looming on October 7, signals a real challenge for campaigns to both win voters and also convince them to turn out to vote. Others question the accuracy of the relatively small sample size in this tracking survey. There is white agreement that the onslaught of negative attack ads rolling out this week will impact the race, it is just unclear which candidate or candidates will benefit from the chaos.

Steve Gill is the publisher and editor of TriStar Daily.