Posted on 03/17/2014 7:42:14 PM PDT by SoFloFreeper
In her final campaign speech before Tuesday's primary election, Republican congressional candidate Erika Harold said she was satisfied with her 10-month-long campaign to unseat U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville.
"At the outset of this I wanted to run a positive campaign where we focused on issues and focused on giving people a reason to vote for as opposed to running against," Harold, an Urbana attorney, told a McLean County Republican Party luncheon in Bloomington.
"At the beginning people said, 'Oh, that's naive. People always have to go negative.' And I sincerely believe that one of the reasons that people are so disenfranchised with our democratic process is that we don't spend enough time talking about things that we want people to vote for. And by the end of the campaign things become so negative, so polarized that people wonder, are these the best candidates that we have to offer?"
Harold, who along with Moro, Ill., veterinarian Michael Firsching is challenging Davis in the 14-county 13th Congressional District on Tuesday said felt she "ran the campaign that I wanted to run.
"In politics you cannot control other people. You ultimately can only control the campaign that you run, and I believe I've run a positive campaign that focused on issues. For people who decide to vote for me, they are voting for me as opposed to voting against someone," said the Harvard Law School graduate and former Miss America.
She said she has received "a great reception," adding, "I so expect to pull an upset tomorrow."
Polls taken last month showed a big lead for Davis, who has raised substantially more money and run more television and radio commercials. But Harold claimed that sources in Davis' campaign had said that internal polls showed the race tightening.
"I know that the polls have tightened and that if you drive throughout the district people are stunned by the level of (yard) signs that are up throughout the district," she said.
Harold pledged that if elected she would meet with constituents, as she has in town hall sessions and speeches in each county in the district since she announced her candidacy last June.
"I would definitely want to carry that same level of transparency and outreach to people if I was their representative," she said. "One of the things that frustrates people is they feel that there are so many barriers between themslves and their representative, and they feel that they either have to contribute to that person or be politically connected."
Hope she wins....
I hope she wins, too. It sounds like she’s run her campaign the way my congresscritter, DesJarlais, has done twice now. In 2010, he beat our too-long-seated demoncrat congresscritter who ran a NASTY campaign and he beat him soundly. Two years ago, his demoncrat opponent pulled the same, nasty stunt and DesJarlais beat him, too. Both races, he campaigned on the issues and never once stepped off into the gutter.
If she wins, I hope she’ll do as good a job in DC as DesJarlais has done. I’ve been quite happy with his job performance and look forward to voting for him again.
*Erika Harold ping*
Go Erika, go!
If she wins, that won’t be an upset. About 2/3 of Illinois Republicans, I know, hope that she’ll win.
Me too, and I think we’re going to see a big turnout just to vote for Bruce Rauner and against the assclown posse GOP elitists.
Except Rauner is in bed with Rahm Emanuel.
The people you know are probably mostly conservative and politically engaged people that are not an accurate cross section of the primary electorate.
I hope she wins but if she does it won’t be by much.
Rinoauner is the next George Ryan. He IS one of the “elitists”, don’t fall for his flowery rhetoric.
The fix is in to anoint him. Notice how his main primary challenger got his campaign destroyed by an invented scandal.
Smart conservatives will be voting for Brady tomorrow, by default, as Rutherford is done and Dillard is almost as bad as Rauner.
Governor
Rauner (RINO) squeaks out a win over Dillard (RINO). 40-37 with 97% in. Rauner’s running mate Evelyn Sanguinetti is speaking Spanish on stage and has a really of-putting manner.
The local news is reporting (if I understand them correctly) that democrats crossed over for Dillard, didn’t happen in my heavily rat Chi precinct, turnout was 1%. There were no major rat primaries, Quinn crushed a weak challenger.
Senate
Oberdouche beats Truax 56-44. Fail. 30 point loss in November likely for this perennial loser.
Tim Cross (RINO) wins the primary for Treasurer over Bob Grogan 57-43. Fail
CD 8, the erratic campaign of Pete Sessions’ recruited Manju Goel ended in massive defeat by more than 2-1 to underfunded primary challenger Larry Kaifesh. Cook/Rasmussen/Sabato all rate the seat as safe rat due to the weakness of the GOP challengers. Goel clearly would have had no chance. Kaifesh needs money to compete in November.
CD 9, Safe rat seat but it there is close GOP primary here, Susane Atanus, who says autism is God’s punishment for homosexuality, leads a Ron Paulbot by 52-48 with 93% in.
CD 11 State Rep. Darlene Senger beats Chris Balkema and Bert Miller in a fairly close 3-way race. Senger should be semi-competitive in November
CD 13 Davis beats Harold 54-41. Sigh.
CD 16, Adam Kingzinger crushes Rockford Tea-Party leader David Hale. Hale was a weak challenger and Rockford is only partially in the district.
IL House District 81. Gay marriage supporting incumbent Ron Sanduck leads conservative Keith Matune by 30 votes with 93% in.
So across the board, except for Rauner, this was the cataclysm we expected. Oh, well. Illinois remains the most corrupt state in the union, where both the Rats and Reps are rats.
NJ is a close second.
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