The Tea Party Dad Video Gave Carl Sciortino a Boost

After several days of enormous attention thanks to the quickly infamous “Tea Party Dad” video, state representative Carl Sciortino of Medford seems to have gained ground on the rest of the field in the special congressional primary coming in three weeks.

That’s according to a poll done for a rival campaign over the past three days. Conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research for state senator Karen Spilka of Ashland, the poll shows Sciortino tied for fourth at 11 percent—a significant bump from previous polls, which have shown him far behind in fifth, with about half that support.

The video debuted on September 17, and the poll was conducted the evenings of September 22-24.

The poll shows Spilka statistically tied for the lead with state senator Katherine Clark of Melrose, with Clark at 19 percent and Spilka at 18 percent. Middlesex County Sheriff Peter Koutoujian has 15 percent and Belmont state senator Will Brownsberger is tied with Sciortino with 11 percent.

The IVR poll of 400 likely voters has a margin of error of +/- 4.9 percent.

The poll also showed Sciortino even with Brownsberger with 39 percent name identification, behind Clark with 55 percent, Spilka 50 percent, and Koutoujian 48 percent.

Those figures suggest the difficulty facing the campaigns with three weeks until the primary as the race to succeed Ed Markey has been overshadowed by the Boston mayoral race.

Koutoujian has the best net favorable/unfavorable rating, at 35/13. Clark is 36/18; Spilka 32/17; Sciortino 27/12; and Brownsberger 24/16.