Political insiders say some recent polls show Democratic Attorney General Larry EchoHawk would be the runaway winner if the election for governor was held right now and his Republican opponent was ex-Lt. Gov. Phil Batt.
Those polls show the percentage of people recognizing EchoHawk's name is 40 points higher than the percentage recognizing Batt.The election's still 11 months away, however. And neither Echo-Hawk nor Batt have won their party primary nominations.
EchoHawk's path did get a lot easier this past week when fellow Democrat John Peavey, the state senator from Carey, dropped out of the governor's race in exchange for the endorsement of EchoHawk and retiring Democratic Gov. Cecil Andrus.
He's now the only announced Democrat for the No. 2 spot on the November ballot, and the endorsements Peavey secured could likely keep it that.
The development could be a huge benefit to the Democrats. It would avoid a costly, bloody battle for the party's governor nomination dividing pro-choice Democrats for Peavey and anti-abortion Democrats for EchoHawk.
It leaves only former state Sen. Ron Beitelspacher of Grange-ville in the race against EchoHawk. Most political observers feel Beitelspacher won't pose nearly the challenge that Peavey would, even though he also is pro-choice.
And Beitelspacher could get the same message that Peavey did - that EchoHawk's strength has dried up potential sources of funding - and he could pull out before the March filing deadline.
Beitelspacher made a point of stopping by the Capitol this week after returning from his honeymoon to inform reporters he's still in the race for governor.
Batt, meanwhile, still is keeping quiet until he officially launches his campaign on Jan. 19. His time's been spent organizing and fund-raising. As of this past week, campaign manager Jeff Malmen said Batt has about $200,000 in cash, not pledges or promises, and it's coming in at the rate of about $1,000 a day.
That puts the Wilder farmer, party leader, former state senator and 1982 GOP gubernatorial nominee way ahead of everybody else in fund-raising.
The other Republican nominees, Boise businessmen Larry Eastland, Doug Dorn and Chuck Winder, all trail Batt both in cash and name recognition among voters.
Eastland's doing the most to erase that disadvantage, reportedly spending between $15,000 and $20,000 on a number of Christmas-oriented billboards in the Boise area.
None of it comes as any surprise to Malmen - even the huge deficit in name recognition Batt appears to have.
"I think there probably is 40 points difference in name ID," he said.
That's because EchoHawk, the state's top legal officer, gets a lot of publicity from his office. And Batt has been out of the spotlight for several months since he resigned as state party chairman.
"As a result, any head-to-head poll probably will show EchoHawk ahead of everybody else," Malmen said.
But there's still a lot of time until next November, and the politicking will warm up considerably next month when Batt, GOP Lt. Gov. Butch Otter and others formally launch their campaigns. Republicans are confident that once they get down to talking about specific issues with EchoHawk, they will cut into that huge lead.