State Governments

Illinois Voters Go to the Polls

By Jay Newton-Small | @JNSmall | February 2, 2010 | +

Illinois today kicks off what will be a long and fascinating primary season. Voters braved snow flurries to head to the polls this morning as balloting began for a number of local and statewide races, including contests for the U.S. Senate and governor’s mansion. The names Obama and Blagojevich may not be on the ticket but there are still some pretty dramatic races to watch today and at least one has a relatively famous name.

1)   IL-14. This is former House Speaker Denny Hastert’s old seat and voters in this northern Illinois district will recognize Hastert’s name on the ballot. No, Denny isn’t making a comeback; his son Ethan Hastert is running against his father’s ghosts (and seemingly those of the entire Bush Administration) in the hopes of winning the seat once held by Joseph Cannon (the second-longest serving speaker after Hastert – something must be in the water there). Ethan is going up against State Sen. Randy Hultgren, who has attempted to go to Hastert’s hard right, for the honor of challenging incumbent Bill Foster, a Democrat who won the seat with 52.5% of the vote in 2008. The district has seen some pretty wide political swings of late, electing George W. Bush to a second term with 55% of the vote in 2004 but voting for President Obama in 2008, also with 55% of the vote.

2)   Speaking of GOP primaries, the race for the Republican nomination to vie for Obama’s old Senate seat, being vacated by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s appointee Roland Burris, will be intently watched. Moderate Rep. Mark Kirk is taking on Tea Party darling Pat Hughes. Though Hughes has forced Kirk to the right on many issues – and to go begging for Sarah Palin’s endorsement – the ideological scuffles haven’t seemed to have had an effect on primary goers. Kirk looks favored to win, though a fratricidal Hughes upset is a storyline Dems would love.

3)   While we’re on the subject of Blago, the Democratic primary for his former governor’s seat is neck-in-neck. Pat Quinn, the lieutenant governor who took over in the wake of Blago’s impeachment, is struggling to wrest the nomination from State Comproller Dan Hynes. Both are powerful and long-serving figures in Illinois Democratic circles and neither have quite succeeded in selling themselves as change Lincoln-Staters can believe in after the Blago disappointment. Blago, by the way, goes on trial this summer; a sure-to-be-circus that will likely taint the general election candidacy of whomever ends up being the Democratic nominee. On the Republican front six candidates – including Andy McKenna, a former Illinois GOP chairman; former Attorney General Jim Ryan; and two state senators – will duke it out for the GOP nomination. Aside from Blago, the biggest issue will be the state’s dismal deficit — $13 billion by some estimates.

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Related Topics: Congress, gubernatorial races, Illinois Primary, Senate, voting, 2012 Election, Barack Obama, Congress, Democratic Party, Republican Party, Senate, State Governments

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  • deconstructiva

    Jay, in case you missed last week’s welcome back, well, welcome back again and thank you for your Haiti work. Alas, playing spell check, you opened with, “Voters braved snow flurries to head to the poles this morning….” Not teasing you of course, but this is genuinely funny. I appreciate it. Thank you. The association with cold weather – or stripping? – is highly appropriate. Are you NOT a cold weather person? Or are voters heading to the North or South Pole to vote? Bundle up, it gets nippy in both places in Feb.

  • gketch

    I live in Illinois’ 14th district, and am a proud supporter of Bill Foster. You can attribute the wide swings in voter results to the fact that Kendall County was the second fastest-growing county in the US until the recession hit. Now it’s near the top in foreclosures. Where this area was once mostly rural, it is now primarily a bedroom community filled with McMansions.

    I will be signing up to work for Foster as soon as the warm weather hits. He will need all the support he can muster.

    I truly hope that pundits don’t look to Illinois for any tea leaves. Our state politics are so tainted with Blagoyevich, Burris, and Todd Stroger (Cook Cnty President) that votes cannot be considered much of a referendum on health care or any other issue.

  • stuartzechman

    Jay Newton-Small:
    .
    Welcome back to the Swamp.

    The names Obama and Blagojevich may not be on the ticket but there are still some pretty dramatic races to watch today and at least one has a relatively famous name.

    What is this, are you covering Celebrity Jeopardy?
    .
    Why on earth would you think that more tabloidism is necessary to introduce into your political reporting?
    .
    Are you trying your best to produce journalism that is the result of a perverted genetic experiment we’d find on some political media’s Island of Dr. Moreau? Has the half CQ/half Access Hollywood creature just emerged from the House of Pain?
    .
    What do these people who are or aren’t going to be elected believe in doing or not doing with the offices they seek?
    .
    Can you please include at least a minimum of information on the issue positions voters care about along with all the exciting (to Beltway insiders and the very dull) tidbits about circuses and scuffles and broohahas and vendettas and celebrities?
    .
    Thanks in advance for not surreptitiously writing for either Congressional Quarterly or Access Hollywood, Jay Newton-Small.

  • deconstructiva

    …also Jay, kudos for reminding us about Hastert. Remember his 2006 Foley press conference …in front of a graveyard? Now that’s a captive audience (photo ok, video not working, alas)
    http://www.americablog.com/2006/10/hastert-does-press-conference-about.html
    .
    more pix – http://wonkette.com/289510/dennis-hastert-a-life-in-funny-pictures

  • jcapan

    Can I just go on the record as saying your work in Haiti was great & meaningful. This, not so much. Seem to have instantly reverted to Amy Sullivan’s banal terrain. I get that this rag demands such machinations, but I still wonder if life suddenly seems bereft of meaning. I mean, covering the vice beat and all after the potent dose of humanity in the islands.

  • Mr. Nice Guy

    Poles? North or South? Magnetic or geographic? Either way, that’s an awful long trip just to cast a vote…

  • Mr. Nice Guy

    I don’t get to design clever, inspiring, meaningful technology solutions every day, either. Some days, I have to “slop the pigs,” so to speak. I imagine JNS likes it about as much as I do.

  • deconstructiva

    …hmm, maybe lovely Jay was engaging in wordplay with us? If she literally meant the poles, I hope they’re magnetic. At least the North M-Pole is on land. Given global warming (aka known as “summer” to the R’s), I wouldn’t want to stand and vote on melting ice caps.

  • jcapan

    Mr N-G:
    .
    “I don’t get to design clever, inspiring, meaningful technology solutions every day, either. Some days, I have to ‘slop the pigs,’ so to speak. I imagine JNS likes it about as much as I do.”
    .
    Agreed about the former–I don’t manage to facilitate meaningful discussion about Walden or the whiteness fo the whale everyday either. As for the latter, speaking to a villager’s free will, who knows. We’re sure not going to hear it from her/others in a blog their corporation runs. But it does help me at times, in terms of salvaging some estimation of their work, knowing that certain constraints limit their capacity to produce quality work. Of course, this begins the moment you take the corp media gig to begin with.

  • formerlyjames

    I know little about these races beyond the seemly accepted notion that Illinois (Chicago) politics are corrupt to the core. But on #2, Kirk (whoever he is as far as I know), might well have Sarah push him over the line given her challenge of Rahm Emanuel’s most recent display of type-A obnoxious behavior. Nothing here yet on that. Another issue I’d be interested in seeing here is the American religious freaks attempted kidnapping of kids in Haiti. Thanks for your attention.

  • http://www.twitter.com/jnsmall Jay Newton-Small

    Yeah, this was a management ordered post to keep ya’ll informed about the Illinois races. (BTW Hastert lost, Kirk won and Quinn is claiming victory with a margin of 7k votes).

    And, yes, reentry to the political world after so much destruction is tough… Though, tomorrow I head to the Tea Party Convention in Nashville which should prove colorful.

    Thanks for the welcome back, deconstructiva. Also, I fixed poles. And thanks jcapan for the kind words about my Haiti work. Hopefully, TIME will see fit to send me back soon…
    JNS

  • apr2563

    Jay, something that might be noted:
    After 98% of the results in Illinois were counted the turnout was 185,000 more Dems than Reps voting in the Senate race and 296,000 more Dems than Reps voted in the Governor’s race. What about the hype that Reps are more motivated to vote than Dems? And this was a primary.

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