Huh? Are you even from Illinois? Kirk is FROM suburban Cook. Brady was unknown in Cook County. Literally unknown. 90% of the people in the Chicago area never heard of him.
Unfortunately brady read the polls and was coasting the last week. He did not even campaign over the final weekend. He must have forgotten that he was in illinois where a republican has to win by a 5 percent margin or the election will be stolen.
Most of Kirk's congressional district is in Lake County. The Cook County portion, consisting of the far north suburbs along the lakefront, is the wealthiest portion of the state. Towns like Kenilworth where the average home costs a million bucks. It has very little in common with the rest of Cook. Kirk talked about his "suburban agenda", which was limited to his own district. He gave the other 90% of suburbia the middle figure and was AWOL at every event I attended.
Bill Brady is from downstate Bloomington-Normal. His son Will attends law school at DePaul University in Chicago so he has a visible presence here. His son was kind enough to drive by my house during the primary and drop off supplies when I couldn't get any. After the primary, Bill Brady realized he needed to get his message out here so from Feb. to Nov. he had roughly 75% of his campaign events in Chicagoland. Bill Brady was in my local community at least half a dozen times in the past few months (at the opening of the Worth Township Republican office, Evergreen Park Independence Parade, etc.), meeting and greeting thousands of voters -- mostly middle and working class communities. Mark Kirk was AWOL at every one of them. I never ONCE saw Kirk in the southwest suburbs (gee, we have only 500,000 people, must not be important). Even Kirk's website says the only event Kirk had in "my region" the entire campaign was a closed-door fundraiser in Palos Heights.
This election was fixed. Wake up, Inyokern.
What cost Brady was the third party vote. ~8% went third in the governors race, while ~3% went third party in the senate race. That is how Blago got his 2nd term..