An email sent out by the Hank Johnson campaign late last week telegraphed to the world that a new poll recently put out by Lake Research Partners shows Johnson with a substantial lead over his potential competition in the District 4 congressional district.

Johnson has a +28 point lead in a four candidate field including Vernon Jones, Connie Stokes, and Lee May.

On the full four way ballot, Johnson has more support than all of his opponents combined, and he is already only 3 points away from the simple majority necessary to avoid a runoff.

And in head to head matchups, Johnson easily defeats his two closest challengers.

According to the poll, Johnson currently holds a 40-point advantage over from DeKalb CEO Vernon Jones and a 39-point lead over DeKalb County Commissioner Connie Stokes.

Since this press release went out, it has been announced that potential challenger and DeKalb County Commissioner Lee May had dropped out of the race to “focus on the county’s deficit.”

It’s still early in the race, but such huge discrepancies may be hard to make up.  Especially for an already well-known challenger like Vernon Jones.

Budget gaps are no fun.  Once a local government starts implementing hiring freezes and proposing tax hikes, constituents immediately become more sensitive to any and all expenses.

And the AJC knows it.

Splashed across the front page of this morning’s paper, a story about the DeKalb County Commission’s recent approval of up to $101,000 to repaint and wallpaper government buildings.

Commissioner Connie Stokes explained to the paper that the wallpapering is not just a cosmetic expense, but will replace “flood or water-damaged wallpaper.” And though the paper cites real estate agent Mark Ponzer as knowing “that some wallpapering can be put on hold”, no specific examples are provided to refute Stokes claim.

However, the commission did not respond to questions about why any of the county’s 8,000 employees could do the work, instead of contracting the work out.