Through the entire 2016 cycle, the outside spending on [US Sen. Mark Kirk’s] behalf represents just a fraction of the total money spent on GOP incumbents, and significantly lags behind the amount spent to back his colleagues in tough races. And as groups strategize and lock in future spending, so far there appear to be no plans to put big money behind the Illinois lawmaker’s re-election campaign against Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth.
For some of these Republican groups, it’s a simple calculation: Illinois is a deeply blue state in presidential election years, and with so many other competitive races in battleground states, investing there may not be the best use of resources.
“It is an enormously difficult state to be a Republican running statewide in a presidential year,” said one party operative who works for an outside group and who requested anonymity to discuss strategy. “I think you could bring Abraham Lincoln back from the dead to try for the Senate seat and he would have trouble in 2016, or he would be a decided underdog in 2016.”
RCP says $1.1 million has been spent so far, split about down the middle, compared to $13 million in Ohio and $8 million in Pennsylvania.
Kirk’s campaign pushed back on the narrative there has been a lack of investment in his re-election. Eleni Demertzis, a spokeswoman for Kirk, said in a statement to RCP that Duckworth will be badly damaged by a trial in August at which she faces accusations of misconduct from her time leading the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs. Demertzis said if anyone would be expected to spend outside money in the race, it would be Democrats backing Duckworth ahead of the trial, and she suggested the lack of GOP outside money is because Kirk faces a flawed Democratic opponent.
They sure are putting an awful lot of hope into the outcome of that Duckworth trial.
A new poll commissioned by Sen. Mark Kirk’s campaign shows that a majority of Illinoisans think Rep. Tammy Duckworth should have to testify in an August trial related to a workplace retaliation lawsuit stemming from her time as Director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs.
According to the GS Strategy Group poll of 600 likely Illinois voters, 63 percent of respondents said Duckworth should have to testify “because she was a state employee as the head of the VA, and Illinois voters deserve to know the truth behind her actions.” 17 percent of respondents said it’s Duckworth’s “right to not have to testify in this trial.” […]
“Rod Blagojevich refused to take the stand in court,” Artl added. “Will Rep. Duckworth follow her former boss’s legal strategy?”
