More than a year before the primary, the District 4 race has started.

It’s early for this. It’s so early for this. The election isn’t until 2016 and the shenanigans have already started.

I’m not even talking about all of the poo flinging between presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, all of whom have announced they’re definitely running.

I’m talking about Jane Parker, the District 4 incumbent on the Monterey County Board of Supervisors; Dennis Donohue, the former Salinas mayor/radicchio pusher; and Ralph Rubio, the retired carpenter’s union head and mayor of Monterey Downs, err, Seaside.

The polling has begun. And more specifically, it’s the push polling – questions designed to lead the one being polled on a specific path – that’s begun.

Last week, Monterey Bay Central Labor Council Executive Director Cesar Lara mentioned he’d received a polling call about the District 4 seat. Lara lives in Salinas, in the city’s slender portion of District 4, which spans Seaside and Marina on the Monterey Peninsula.

Just a day after Lara mentioned his phone call, Assistant Editor Kera Abraham received what seemed to be the same polling call – and she took notes.

The pollster was calling on behalf of EMC Research. She couldn’t tell Abraham who hired her, because she didn’t know, she said. After a routine “how likely are you to vote,” the pollster launched the survey.

From 1-7, the pollster asked, rank the importance of the following: homelessness; jobs/economy; growth/development; local government; education; crime; the environment; transportation and infrastructure; and drought.

And then the pollster asked how favorably Abraham viewed the following: Jane Parker; LandWatch Monterey County; NAACP local president Mel Mason; Seaside real estate developer Al Glover; local farmer Dennis Donohue (note: Donohue is about as much of a farmer as I am – he markets radicchio); state Sen. Bill Monning, D-Carmel; the Monterey County Hospitality Association; Seaside-based activist Helen Rucker; Ralph Rubio; Salinas Mayor Joe Gunter; Monterey Downs; state Assemblyman Luis Alejo, D-Watsonville; state Assemblyman Mark Stone, D-Scotts Valley; and Marina Mayor Bruce Delgado.

Then the kicker: If the election was held today, and the candidates were Donohue, Parker and Rubio, who would you vote for? What about Parker and Donohue or Parker and Rubio?

Then the big finale: Are you more or less likely to support a candidate who will collaborate with fellow supes; who is Latino; who is supported by labor unions; who has experience protecting the environment; who is a woman; who is against new development; who is supported by faith groups; who will make creating jobs a priority.

I asked my new bestie, GOP shotcaller Paul Bruno (he was in my column two weeks ago for trying to use a cable to round up protesters who blocked Highway 1 during a black/brown lives matter action – he now texts me pictures of himself posing with cable-themed license plates like CABLEME and MRCABLE). He says it’s not the local GOP.

In Oldtown Salinas over the weekend, I ran into Donohue canoodling with Gilroy City Councilman Peter Leroe-Muñoz, who’s running for the assembly seat Luis Alejo will term out of in 2016. Donohue said he wasn’t behind the poll – although it’s known he’s running for the seat, as coy as he tries to be. He’s already having citizen meetings in Seaside, and he’s registered his committee with county Elections.

Rubio says via text message it’s not him either.

You can tell this is a push poll because the pollster took a minute to trash talk Parker: “We need somebody who can be more than a no vote on the Board of Supervisors,” she stated.

Given that, how likely are you to vote for her?

Parker’s long been more than a no vote. Salinas constituents are ticked off she agreed to the county purchase of the old Capital One building and plans to move certain county offices there. She’s also opposed to screwing the environment, and thus she’s opposed to the Monterey Downs development.

Given that, I wonder who funded the poll – and who are they trying to anoint to take on Parker?

MARY DUAN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at mary@mcweekly.com