* Last night, US Sen. Mark Kirk was interviewed by WGN TV’s Tom Negovan at the Bruce Rauner campaign headquarters. Watch…

* Transcript…

Kirk: I came over here thinking pretty much a Rauner blowout was coming, and it’s a little tighter than we expected.

Negovan: It certainly is tighter than a lot of people expected. What do you attribute that to, Senator?

Kirk: I would say tactical voting has finally worked of the big public sector unions turning out the vote for their man.

Negovan: I was just talking to the folks back at the studio about that just a second ago. You know, when Bruce Rauner talks about Scott Walker and Mitch Daniels as mentors and examples he wants to follow … could that be a tactical error?

Kirk: It turns out that the big unions are stronger than we all expected here in Illinois.

* Early this morning, AFSCME’s Henry Bayer forwarded me a Bruce Rauner fundraising e-mail that the candidate sent out late last night. Bayer prefaced it with this comment…

It’s early in the morning, so I may have missed the word “union” in this attack.

* From Rauner’s e-mail…

Thank you!

Tonight’s victory is an extraordinary first step towards transforming Illinois.

Pat Quinn and his special interest allies spent $6 million trying to defeat us in the primary and you stopped them.

We are so humbled by your extraordinary support. We won because we stayed true to our core beliefs: we must shake up the system to bring back Illinois.

We are united in a desire to bring back jobs, reverse the Quinn-Madigan 67% tax hike, cut wasteful spending, reform our broken school system, and pass term limits to get rid of the career politicians.

We never deviated from a simple truth: our government is run by lobbyists, for special interests, and the career politicians in both parties let it happen.

Yep. Not a word about unions.

* Indeed, Rauner’s campaign manager told WGN last night that his candidate is “very pro union.”

…Adding… Rauner’s victory speech last night was loud, proud and more than a bit Howard Deanish. But during his speech he said his campaign was about “the working families of our state. This is about the truck driver in Rockford who’s looking for more work. This is about the factory worker in Decatur who lost his job who’s looking for another job. This is about the school teacher in Chicago who’s working hard to inspire children to learn and deserves our support and respect and reward.”

Watch…

A more subdued Rauner repeated the line this morning on WLS Radio.