…Adding… I missed this one. I am only sporadically on the Bill Brady press release list…
With the final vote totals now reported, our campaign has a 406-vote lead over Senator Kirk Dillard at the top of the Republican gubernatorial contest. Still to be counted are absentee ballots that were not included in Tuesday’s balloting and provisional ballots that will not be counted for several days. Our legal and political team does not believe those votes will be sufficient to offset our lead.
We’re confident our vote will hold up and we will move onto victory in November.
* Andy McKenna conceded this afternoon and announced that he “stands ready” to support Bill Brady… unless the other guy wins. Check out the press release…
“Now that Democrats appear to be coming together as a Party, Republicans must do the same. There is simply too much at stake in this election to allow Party infighting to distract us from our mission. Based upon the numbers available today, we stand ready to support Bill Brady who appears headed for the nomination, or whoever is declared the eventual winner. We look forward to the process completing itself soon and working with our nominee to win in November.”
Mckenna’s “running mate” Matt Murphy also conceded…
“Congratulations to Jason Plummer on winning the Republican nomination for Lieutenant Governor. He ran a strong campaign on the right ideas. Republicans have a Lieutenant Governor nominee we can be proud to support. I look forward to working with Mr. Plummer and our entire Republican ticket to bring real change to Springfield in 2010.”
Former U.S. Sen. Adlai Stevenson — who formed a third party to run for governor in 1986 rather than share the same ticket as two disciples of Lyndon H. LaRouche — said Gov. Quinn faces the same political reality in dealing with running mate Scott Lee Cohen.
“It would be very difficult for Pat Quinn, in good conscience, to run for governor with this fellow tied to him as if they’re joined at the hip,” Stevenson told the Sun-Times today.
“One answer is to do what I did, namely to resign the nomination and run as an independent with a different lieutenant governor candidate,” he said. “Of course, they can try to talk [Cohen] out of it, but I’m skeptical as to whether that would work.”
I agree that Cohen isn’t likely to get out quite yet. Threatening to form a third party could be used to put pressure on Cohen.
But people forget that Adlai was the only Democrat to jump ship that year. Everybody was watching to see what US Sen. Alan Dixon would do, and when he decided to remain on the Democratic ticket, the rest of the “legit” ticket stuck with him. Adlai, who spent almost none of his own money on his razor-thin loss in 1982, had to mostly fund his ‘86 race himself. He got creamed.
* Cohen didn’t get elected by himself. He had some help. For instance, Ald. Dick Mell’s 33rd Ward organization had him on their sample ballot. Click here for the full thing, but I’ve given you a helpfully annotated version…
Check out election results by Chicago ward and Cook township to see who else may have helped out. [Hat tip to a commenter.]
* Adam Andrzejewski’s e-mail to supporters…
THE DAWN OF A NEW DAY [STILL] RISES
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
– Winston S. Churchill
In 1955, William F. Buckley called for us to stand athwart history yelling stop.
1964, President Ronald Reagan called for us to preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.
In 2009, Tea Party patriots across the country stood against increased government taxation, spending, and intervention and reasserted their individual liberty
And in 2010, the citizens of Illinois called for A New Day. A new day of honest, accountable, and limited government.
Many of you have called, emailed, Facebooked or Tweeted asking, “What’s next?”
Tuesday we learned the road to A New Day in Illinois is longer than we had hoped. However, the fight we waged against the under-performing Illinois establishment has not come to an end and certainly does not end with my bid for Governor.
Over the course of the last year, you have opened a new chapter in Illinois politics and renewed the Reagan revolution that first came to Illinois in 1976. Tea parties, 9/12 organizations and other advocacy groups have re-ignited the consciousness of conservatism. Your passion captured the imagination of thousands of Illinoisans across our great state and drew the support of national and international conservative leaders.
Your hard work and dedication created an unprecedented grassroots movement calling for honest, accountable, and limited government. Tuesday, we may have been delayed, but we have certainly not been denied. I am committed to rebuilding our party and I am committed to re-laying the foundation with the values and principles our nation’s founders knew to be essential for our Liberty: limited government, free enterprise, individual liberty and traditional American values.
I still believe that it’s your turn. I still believe the dawn of a new day is rising in Illinois. And I still believe that what you have started over the course of the last year is of epic proportions and has already made history in countless ways. And I am still with you, for the good of Illinois.
In December, Giannoulias was up by three points over Kirk. In October, the two men were tied at 41% each. In mid-August, Kirk held a modest 41% to 38% lead over Giannoulias.
* How would you rate the job Barack Obama has been doing as President… do you strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove, or strongly disapprove of the job he’s been doing?
* How would you rate the job Pat Quinn has been doing as Governor… do you strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove, or strongly disapprove of the job he’s been doing?
In Illinois, 45% rate their personal finances as good or excellent, while just 13% say they are poor. But only 20% think their finances are improving, while 42% say they are getting worse.
Forty-seven percent (47%) of Illinois voters believe it is possible to balance the federal budget without raising taxes, but 34% disagree. Forty-four percent (44%) favor an across-the-bard tax cut for all Americans, but 38% oppose such a tax cut.
Still, the majority (53%) of voters in Illinois believe cutting taxes is a better way to create jobs than increased government spending. Twenty percent (20%) believe increased spending is the way to go.
* Some people believe that the federal government has become a special interest group that looks out primarily for its own interests. What do you think? Has the federal government become a special interest group?
71% Yes
17% No
12% Not sure
* Do government and big business often work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors?
67% Yes
14% No
19% Not sure
Etc…
Illinois Survey of 500 Likely Voters Conducted February 3, 2010. Margin of Sampling Error, +/- 4.5 percentage points
Mark Kirk’s campaign put out a poll yesterday claiming to start the general election with a 12 point lead over Alexi Giannoulias, which was a little surprising to me since we found Alexi up by eight points just two weeks ago. I’ll give Kirk points for transparency though- he put the full results from the poll online.
Of course doing so makes it clear how the big lead in the poll was possible. Just 49% of those surveyed report voting for Barack Obama in 2008 to 42% who say they voted for John McCain. Obama won the state 62-37.
It is more than likely that the folks who turn out this fall will be less Obama friendly than the folks who turned out in 2008, but not to that extent. Our final Massachusetts Senate poll found the electorate there had supported Obama by a 56-37 margin, just a 7 point drop on the margin from his 62-36 victory there. Use a 59-41 Obama split on the Kirk poll and you get a 44-39 lead for Kirk, relatively similar to this morning’s Rasmussen poll.
Beyond that it’s important to note that more than 2/3rds of the undecideds in the Kirk poll were Obama voters- distribute those proportionally and you have a 50/50 race, which feels about right at this point. The last couple of weeks of the primary were a lot harder on Giannoulias than they were on Kirk, and his fate may be determined by the extent to which he is able to unify Democratic voters around him now that he’s the guy.
* Thinking now about the economy…Do you think that the 780 billion dollar economic stimulus legislation passed by Congress last year was a good idea, a bad idea or do you not have an opinion either way?
Good Idea 38.3
Bad Idea 46.0
No Opinion 15.7
* Thinking about the way the federal government has responded to the financial crisis in recent months, generally speaking, do you approve or disapprove of the expansion of the government’s role in the economy?
Approve 38.2
Disapprove 49.6
No Opinion 12.2
* Thinking now about health care…From what you have heard about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Leader Harry Reid’s health care plans, do you think their plans are a good idea or a bad idea?
Good Idea 30.6
Bad Idea 52.1
No Opinion 17.4
…Adding… The DSCC just posted a new YouTube video attacking Mark Kirk. Rate it…
