Unfortunately, there is no on in the hopper at present that wants to run against Lamar!. He made sure to rack up all those endorsements to preclude any surprise challengers. We also have the serious problem of open primaries, so even if a credible challenger stepped up, the party establishment would try to recruit a 3rd opponent to take votes from said challenger and/or encourage Democrats to flood the primary to back Lamar! as the most liberal nominee.
Sounds familiar to this Illinoisan. Open primaries are as bad a threat as “jungle primaries.” Illinois does not even allow registration by political party. Ominously, here in Illinois where our ex-governors make our license plates, the current governor (prisoner in waiting, actually) Pat Quinn(occhio) has recently proposed that anyone be able to vote in both primaries. That would presumably empower Demonrats who REALLY care about their Marxist candidates du jour to vote for them without losing their ability to vote in GOP primaries simultaneously. The recruitment of multiple conservative candidates to cancel out each other’s chances at nomination is a high art for the alleged GOP leadership here. Quinnochio carried about 3 counties out of 105 last time out but one was the all important Cook County which gave him an overall statewide sliver sized margin of victory.