* As you already know, Robin Kelly won the 2nd Congressional District special primary yesterday with 52 percent of the vote. Debbie Halvorson received 25 percent and Anthony Beale got 11 percent.

From the February 22nd Kankakee Daily Journal…

The campaign of 2nd Congressional District candidate Debbie Halvorson got a boost today with the results of a new poll of 500 voters likely to cast a ballot in the upcoming election.

The former congressman, D-Crete, now leads with 21 percent of the vote, with former front-runner Robin Kelly polling 17 percent. […]

Conducted Feb.17-19, the poll was conducted by Victory Research for WCKG AM Radio.

Pollster Rod McCulloch said that Halvorson’s opponents’ negative advertising about Halvorson regarding issues involving gun control may have backfired.

* I didn’t report on this poll. But NBC5 and the Huffington Post did.

Why did I shy away?

We Ask America ran two polls for me in the days leading up to the election, which I shared with subscribers. Both showed Robin Kelly with large leads and the second poll showed she was most definitely surging upward.

With my own current polling, it seemed to me that the pro-Halvorson poll was just not credible, so I didn’t run it.

* Speaking of Halvorson, a whole lot of commenters predicted yesterday that the black vote would be divided and Halvorson would win.

Here’s the thing, folks: Chicago-area black people vote in higher numbers than anybody else in the region. Black wards pretty much always have the highest turnout. And, in this instance, the voters knew enough about the campaign to know who was who and went with Kelly. She even won Ald. Anthony Beale’s 9th Ward with over 50 percent of the vote. That is quite a feat.

* And speaking of Beale, his concession speech was bitter and way over the top, perhaps to mask his humiliating defeat in his own back yard. Watch…

Beale ran a terrible race. He didn’t raise money, claimed he had a field operation when he really didn’t, and could never focus on an issue that would resonate with voters. I’m almost positive he would’ve lost even without Mayor Bloomberg’s intervention.

* Meanwhile, on the Republican side…

The race among Republicans to replace former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. is too close to call.

Chicago resident Paul McKinley was leading fellow Republican Eric Wallace by about two dozen votes as of late Tuesday night. But with a handful of precincts outstanding, no winner was declared.

And…

Paul McKinley calls himself an “ex-offender” who wants to get other ex-offenders to work. That’s why he ran as a Republican candidate in the special primary to replace Jesse Jackson Jr.

McKinley served prison time for robbery, he says. Now he’s on a mission to offer “street repentance.”

“Street repentance means to help a young man to not go in the same direction that I went,” McKinley says in this campaign video.

With 99 percent of the precincts reporting late Tuesday, McKinley was in the lead with just a couple of dozen of votes over Eric Wallace.

* Roundup…

* Ald. Beale blown away by Kelly win: “Wow. That’s what money buys you,”

* Kelly easily wins Democratic race to replace Jesse Jackson Jr. in Congress

* Kelly Takes Aim At NRA In Victory Speech

* Crowd cheers “Robin! Robin!” as Kelly declares a new day in the battle against gun violence

* Candidate backed by Bloomberg wins Democratic primary in Chicago