A new poll out today shows U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski out to a surprisingly large 22-point lead over challenger Marie Newman in the Democratic primary race in the Southwest Side 3rd Congressional District.

But the survey, commissioned by Lipinski but conducted by a well-known national firm, also suggests the incumbent has not yet put away the contest, with a possibility that a large number of undecided voters could break against him before Election Day.

Here are the top-line totals. They come from a survey of 500 likely Democratic voters conducted Jan. 7-9 by Expedition Strategies, a Virginia-based firm that tends to do a lot of polling in areas with an abundance of working-class voters and whose clients include U.S. Sens. Chris Coons of Delaware, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Ron Wyden of Oregon, as well as the House Majority PAC, a Democratic super-PAC. The poll has an error margin of plus or minus 4.38 percent.

Asked who they would vote for if the election were held today, 47 percent backed Lipinski to 25 percent for progressive opponent Newman and 2 and 1 percent each, respectively, for two little-known contenders, Rush Darwish and Charles Hughes. A hefty 26 percent said they didn’t know who they'd support. More on that in a minute.

With “leaners” included—those who, after a bit of a push, say they’re leaning toward a candidate but have not totally decided—Lipinski’s figure rises to 50 percent and Newman’s to 27 percent, with Darwish and Hughes unchanged. But 20 percent still are undecided.

Given that this is the second cycle in which Newman has challenged Lipinski, and given that “undecideds” often break in the end against the incumbent, this race still may be tighter than it might appear. At the same time, a 22-point margin ain’t shabby.

Team Newman says it doesn’t believe the figures, and underlined that the entire survey and its methodology have not been released. ”Until we can see everything, we’ll take this as a campaign ploy” designed to distract voters from the fact that Lipinski is too conservative for the district on issues such as health care, Social Security and women’s rights, said a spokesman.

A spokeswoman for Lipinski said the horse-race question “was asked before any introduction of positives or negatives on the candidates, or any push question."

The spokeswoman adds that 56 percent of those sampled are women and says Lipinski's margin actually was greater among women than men. "This notion that he's driving away women voters (with a rigorous anti-abortion stance) just isn't true."