This morning James Lambert at Swing State Project noted a new poll from Survey USA that shows Mary Jo Kilroy (D) leading the 15th Congressional District race by three points over State Sen. Steve Stivers (R) and pro-life idealogue Don Elijah Eckhart (I), within the poll's margin of error of 4.2 points:

47% Kilroy (D)
44% Stivers (R)
7% Eckhart
2% Undecided

Kilroy leads among women by 10 points, among voters under fifty by 8 points, among independent voters by a 5 to 3 margin. Not a lot of surprises here. It would have been great if Kilroy could have coasted to victory in this district, but Stivers is a serious opponent and it's a swing district so a close race was probably to be expected.

Something that we can definitely expect is misleading and nasty ads against Kilroy by the shadowy 527 group Freedom's Watch, which is now active in this race (along with OH-16). Also not a suprise -- Freedom's Watch has bragged about planning to spend $200 million on attacking Democrats this fall. In any event, the underperforming NRCC has basically outsourced its work to the 527 group, which is advised by Karl Rove and is not required to disclose it's donors.

A founder and major supporter of Freedom's Watch is Sheldon Adelson, the phenomenally wealthy casino tycoon, who used his political clout with Tom Delay to promote his business ventures in China. He has been criticized for union-busting against employees of his Las Vegas casino properties and accused of despicable business practices. Adelson co-chairs McCain's Victory '08 election committee and hosted a fundraiser that brought in $500,000 for McCain.