Posted on 01/28/2010 9:05:33 PM PST by Steelers6
Election 2010: Illinois Republican Primary for Senate Illinois GOP Senate Primary: Kirk 53%, Hughes 18% Thursday, January 28, 2010
Republican Congressman Mark Kirk is well ahead of his closest challenger in the race for the Republican Senate nomination in Illinois. GOP voters will pick their candidate on Tuesday.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely Republican Primary voters in the state finds Kirk leading attorney Patrick Hughes 53% to 18%. Twelve percent (12%) prefer some other candidate, and 18% are still undecided.
Conservatives have been critical of Kirk for some of his positions in the House, and Hughes, chairman of a group called Sensible Taxpayers Opposed to Increased Taxes, is challenging him from the political right. But 51% of conservative Republicans who plan to vote on Tuesday support Kirk versus 20% who are for Hughes.
In the state’s Democratic primary, State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias leads his two chief challengers for the party's Senate nomination in the vote also slated for Tuesday.
Kirk should expect some stiff competition in the general election if Giannoulias wins on Tuesday. Polling in December found Giannoulias ahead of Kirk 42% to 39%. In October, the two men were tied at 41% each. In mid-August, Kirk held a 41% to 38% lead over Giannoulias. Following last week's upset GOP win in the Massachusetts special Senate election, however, Republicans have been eying Illinois as another Democratic-leaning state where they might make a pick-up, given widespread voter unhappiness with the national health care plan and other national Democratic initiatives.
This year’s election will fill the seat currently held by Roland Burris, appointed by former Governor Rod Blagojevich to fill out the remainder of President Obama’s Senate term. Burris is not running for a full-term.
Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Republican voters in Illinois have a favorable opinion of Kirk, while just 22% view him unfavorably. One-in-five voters (20%) have no opinion of the congressman.
The plurality of Illinois GOP voters (45%) still has no opinion of Hughes. His favorables total 34%, his unfavorables 21%.
Democratic Senate incumbents who currently trail their challengers include Harry Reid in Nevada, Michael Bennet in Colorado, Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas and Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania. Barbara Boxer from California, Evan Bayh of Indiana and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin find themselves in more competitive races than usual.
Republicans lead open-seat Senate races in Delaware, Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Ohio. Democrats lead in Connecticut. A commentary by political analyst Larry Sabato, suggests that if the election were held today, “the (59-seat) Democratic majority in the Senate would be reduced to just 52 seats.”
In addition to picking Senate nominees, Illinois voters in both parties will choose their governor candidates for the fall on Tuesday. Former state Republican Chairman Andy McKenna attracts 20% of the vote, enough to hold a modest lead over a large field of hopefuls, in the race to become the GOP nominee for governor of Illinois.
State Comptroller Dan Hynes has edged ahead of current Governor Pat Quinn in the race to become Illinois' Democratic gubernatorial nominee.
Get the info out there to the Illinois voters.
Both candidates are good . . . but I feel with the dire straignts that Illinois is in Sen. Brady would be the man to get the job done. Adam would need on the job training.
Mark Kirk catches heat for cap-and-trade vote
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25500.html
I've passed this on to all my friends in Illinois. Starwise has an extensive Illinois ping list.
Pray for Pat Hughes.
Damn it, why hasn’t Sarah pitched in and endorsed Hughes? A conservative has the change to take Hussein’s old Senate seat, and we’re gonna waste our tea party mojo on another RINO?
This is bullcrap.
Money & recognition, Kirk’s name is all over the place, in snail mail ads, signs, etc.
Palin must be split too.
What’s the difference between a “liberal” and a “moderate” republican?
Truth in advertising? ;)
Mark Kirk is NOT a 'squishy moderate' like Scott Brown. This is a lie started by the Kirk people to cash in on Brown's victory and and unfortunately it seems many conservatives have bought the kool-aid. Kirk's record in office over the last nine years tells a different story. Kirk is a socialist Dede Scozzafava-type DIABLO, instead of a moderate Scott Brown type. Indeed, all the groups that endorsed Coakley over Brown were the SAME groups that supported Kirk in his last election. Mark Kirk gets a 100% rating from NARAL and was rated more liberal than Obama on "green" issues by the Sierra Club. He vehemently opposed the surge in Iraq, championed cap n' trade, and so on. Scott Brown has an A rating from the NRA. Kirk has an F-. Kirk's as much a "moderate Republican" as Karl Marx was a "moderate capitalist"
And Scott Brown's election in the most Democrat state in the union is proof we DON'T "need" to run left-wing slime like Kirk to "win" in states that elected Obama.
I don’t think people in IL have ever surprised us pleasantly.
I believe we will see all over the country the liberal RINOS getting nominated by dumb Republican primary voters. All they know to do is vote for a familiar name that they have seen somewhere.
Sorry, I wasn’t really trying to grade them on the squishy scale, and maybe I should have been. I’m the last guy who should have fallen into the “black/white” trap.
There are a few similarities though; Kirk is a soldier, voted against the stimulus bill, appears to be reasonably opposed to earmarks, he voted for the Bush tax cuts, and against tax increases.
He voted against the house health care bill.
He appears good on defense issues.
So while I won’t say he’s a fiscal conservative, he isn’t like an Arlen specter.
ON the other hand, DeDe actually had the NRA backing, and Kirk isn’t any good on gun issues like Brown was. Which is weird for a military guy not to be good on guns.
Kirk is actually worse on pro-life issues than Brown as well. Both are pretty pro-abortion, but Brown opposes partial-birth abortion, and Kirk voted against the ban. So I agree with you on that one, although that’s hardly much of a point in favor of Brown in my book.
Like I said, it will be interesting. I urge a vote for Hughes in the primary. And since Kirk is pro-abortion, he won’t get my money or my support (neither did Brown), but I don’t think I’ll discourage people from voting for him. Or maybe I will, if it looks like we won’t win control in either case.
Yes, I’d sell my soul for that last vote to put the dems in the minority, apparently, even knowing that Kirk would be one of those senators who could switch parties on us — so maybe I just changed my mind on that.
And Kirk wouldn’t serve any purpose, unless he was the win that put us in the majority. And even then, I’m not sure anymore I could support him — that’s a high price to pay for a majority, and could just give us more of the same problems we had the last time we were in the majority.
Given the President will be Obama for 2 more years, and especially if we can win the house, I’m beginning to think it would be best for us if the Democrats had a few-seat majority in the senate, rather than elect liberal republicans. We could filibuster (I can’t imagine Kirk joining the republicans on a filibuster of a gun bill or an abortion measure), and the house could block most of the agenda, and we could still blame democrats for gridlock in the Senate.
We have a better chance of taking the senate back in 2012, when there are a lot more democrats in republican areas up for election.
OK, I’m convinced. Lets get Hughes elected — now we need a few more conservatives bigshots to endorse him. And let’s not support Kirk here. It was hard enough encouraging people to vote for a pro-abortion candidate in Mass.
I sure as Hell won’t. Kirk is vile.
There are moderates, and there are “moderates.” “Moderates” is MSM-talk for die-hard lefties (Specter, Jeffords, Chafee, Castle, Kirk).
<—Right-wing—Conservative—Mainstream Republican—Moderates—Centrists—RINOs—Country-Club Republicans—”Moderates”—DIABLOs—Socialists—Communists—>
(Oops, that should be reversed... Nah, I;m too lazy to fix it.)
Agreed
What exactly is the difference between him and Obot Gianoulias on the other side?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.