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To: AuH2ORepublican

Illini state ... primary is March 18 ...

CD-16 gonna be close?
CD-13? CD-11, CD-8?


18 posted on 01/21/2014 8:27:23 PM PST by campaignPete R-CT (Let the dead bury the dead. Let the GOP bury the GOP.)
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To: campaignPete R-CT; Impy; BillyBoy; PhilCollins

I haven’t been following the IL congressional primaries closely, but here’s my take:

IL-16: Overwhelmingly Republican CD, so the GOP primary is the only election that matters. Congressman Adam Kinzinger (who defeated the more conservative Congressman Don Manzullo in the 2012 primary) has raised over $750,000, while his only GOP challenger (filing closed in December, so no one else can jump in), Rockford Tea Party leader David Hale, has raised under $5,000. (BTW, most of Rockford is in the adjoining IL-17.) Unless Hale starts raising some major money, Kinzinger will win handily.

IL-13: A marginal district (Romney carried it by like 0.2%) represented by Republican Rodney Davis, it’s the one IL CD that got away from the Democrats in 2012 (they conceded the four CDs into which they packed as many Republicans as possible). Davis only got the nomination because Congressman Tim Johnson dropped out after having won the nomination, and a committee of party hacks from the district picked Davis (an aide to Congressman Shimkus) over former Miss America and conservative spokesperson Erika Harold. Harold is running in the primary this year, but is well behind in fundraising (she had raised $150,000 by Sept. 30, while Davis had raised over $1 million *more than her* by such date), and the few polls I’ve seen have Davis well ahead. I hope that Harold can defeat Davis, since she’s an extremely effective communicator and she’d join Mia Love and maybe one or two others as the first black Republican women in Congress (which would help us to convince conservative and traditionalist blacks to “come home” to the GOP), and since I don’t like how Davis was hand-picked in 2012 only to see him barely eke out a win against a second- or third-tier Democrat opponent, but as of now Harold has quite the uphill climb. And the winner of the GOP primary will face a competitive general election against Judge Ann Callis or Professor George Gollin.

IL-11: I think that state Representative Darlene Senger is the only one of the candidates running who has the experience and profile to run a competitive race against Democrat Congressman Bill Foster. http://www.sengerforcongress.com/ No idea how the primary race is going, but I do see that Senger has raised almost twice as much as presumably her toughest challenger for the nomination (Chris Balkema).

IL-08: This is the district that Congressman Walsh coughed up to the execrable Tammy Duckworth; it was made way more liberal in 2012 redistricting, but deadbeat-dad Walsh likely would have blown the race even under the old lines. In 2014, the only GOP candidate who has reported raising any money is businesswoman Manju Goel, an immigrant from India: http://www.manjuforcongress.com/. Goel had raised $200,000 as of September 30, and my experience with Indian-American candidates is that they have no problem raising money (Indian-Americans tend to be very affluent and like to contribute to political campaigns of fellow Indian-Americans). Her sole GOP opponent, military veteran Larry Kaifesh, had not raised any money by Sept. 30, and I’m not sure if he can make it a real contest (I’m copying some Chicago-area FReepers for their input on this and the other races). The winner of the primary should be competitive against Duckworth in spite of the district’s liberal lean.

I hope this helps.


25 posted on 01/22/2014 6:09:08 AM PST by AuH2ORepublican (If a politician won't protect innocent babies, what makes you think that he'll defend your rights?)
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