Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

Tuesday, Oct 15, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Republican congressional candidate Mike Bost reported raising just $78,000 during the third quarter. Not good at all, to say the least. He spent $35K.

* In other fundraising news…

(F)ormer U.S. Rep. Bob Dold, a Republican who’s trying to reclaim his old job in the north suburban 10th District against Democratic incumbent Brad Schneider, reports raising $317,000 in the quarter ended Sept. 30 with $819,000 cash on hand.

Those are respectable totals, but the income figure was off markedly from the $546,000 Mr. Dold took in when he announced in the second quarter.

Mr. Schneider’s spokeswoman said he’ll disclose his totals tomorrow and declined to give any hints today. That’s likely not a good sign for him, but Team Dold is going to have to do better than $300K a quarter, too, from now on.

…Adding… A Schneider consultant tells me the Democrat will report raising $365,000 this quarter, the first time he’s outraised Dold.

* And one of Ann Callis’ Democratic primary opponents loaned himself some money…

Democratic congressional candidate George Gollin of Champaign has put $165,000 of his own money into his 13th Congressional District race, a report filed with the Federal Election Commission shows.

Gollin, 60, a physics professor at the University of Illinois, reported $135,509 in contributions since organizing his campaign in February. With $165,000 in what is listed as two separate loans to his campaign, Gollin now has $262,087 on hand.

He also released a poll…

The Gollin campaign also released the results of a poll by Public Policy Polling that shows both Gollin and Callis — who is backed by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — trailing freshman U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville.

But the results are statistically similar, with Gollin trailing Davis 41 percent to 33 percent while Callis is behind the congressman, 40 percent to 35 percent. The margin of error in the poll was plus or minus 3.6 percent.

A bit early to say if those results really mean anything. Right now they’re basically just generic Dem numbers vs. an incumbent. We’ll see what Callis’ numbers show. If she has the big bucks, then her name will get out there and she should be able to pull this off.

Nate Silver, by the way, recently referred to PPP as a “dubious” polling outfit.

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It’s all in the numbers

Friday, Oct 11, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller

* The Quincy Journal points out that Bruce Rauner and his new running mate differ substantially on some social issues…

Rauner said he wanted to put gay marriage on a referendum before the voters and said he supported a woman’s “ability to choose…I believe in some common sense regulations and restrictions so it’s rare and safe, but I support a woman’s ability to decide.”

Sanguinetti, however, differed with the top of the ticket.

“On the issue of life…I must say, my mother chose me and she had me at age15,” she said. “For this reason, I am pro-life. I also believe in marriage with the traditional defintion.”

Sanguinetti added that while she and Rauner “are apart on social issues”, they both recognize that Illinois is broken in many other ways.

* Some see those differences as a problem. I’m not sure why, at least not in the primary. Remember a poll I commissioned a while back?…

The Aug. 13 Capitol Fax/We Ask America poll surveyed 1,102 likely Republican primary voters.

The poll found that 74 percent of Republicans wanted GOP gubernatorial candidates to choose a running mate who was “more conservative” than the candidates themselves. Another 18 percent said ideology made no difference and a mere 7 percent said they wanted a more liberal running mate.

The poll found that 73 percent of Republican women and 75 percent of men wanted a more conservative running mate.

79 percent of seniors, who tend to dominate GOP primaries, wanted a more rightward pick.

77 percent of collar county Republicans, 73 percent of suburban Cook and downstate Republicans and 69 percent of Chicago Republicans wanted the candidates to look to their right when picking their lieutenant governor candidates.

Again, at least in the primary, this move could take some heat off Rauner.

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