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Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is holding five rallies across Illinois on Monday in the lead-up to its Super Tuesday vote tomorrow. Although the latest polls show Trump with a lead in Illinois, the Cruz rallies highlight the superior ground effort of his campaign. Donald Trump currently has around 36 percent support in Illinois. Cruz is around 25 percent and Ohio Gov. John Kasich is at 19 percent. While Trump may win the overall vote in Illinois, it is possible he ends up with fewer delegates than Cruz, or even Kasich. In Illinois, the winner of the statewide vote receives...

Polling begun and completed after the March 10 debate shows radical changes in Ohio and Illinois ahead of their March 15 primaries. In both primaries, Ted Cruz is surging, on the strength of a strong debate performance. In Ohio, a winner take all primary with 66 delegates on the line, the latest poll by CBS, conducted from March 9-11, shows Trump and Kasich tied at 33% each with Ted Cruz surging to 27% up from his pre-debate showing of 19%. Easy to dismiss as an outlier? Not if you also look at CBS' Illinois poll that has Trump leading by...

A series of new polls released Sunday show Sen. Ted Cruz surging in key Tuesday battleground states, including Illinois, Ohio and Florida. In Illinois, a new CBS Battleground Tracker poll has real estate mogul Donald Trump and Cruz now locked in a statistical dead head, 38 to 34, for first place. In the NBC/WSJ poll for Illinois, Trump leads with 34 percent, with Cruz close at 25 percent. Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Sen. Marco Rubio come in at 21 and 16 percent, respectively. In Ohio, Cruz is now nipping at the heels of both Kasich and Trump for first...

Just about the time I was getting ready to write this column, news broke from Chicago that a Trump rally was canceled because of threats. Not surprising, I thought. Sad, but not surprising. Welcome to the 2016 election. I'm not a Trump fan by any stretch of the imagination. If you've been reading my columns, I've been quite critical of his unwillingness or inability to speak in specifics on important policy issues. I sympathize with conservatives who oppose him from a policy angle. But what happened in Chicago is different. It was portrayed as a protest specifically against Donald Trump,...

In a press availability last night in Chicago, Ted Cruz laid it all out there. (VIDEO-AT-LINK) We need to learn to have disagreements without being disagreeable. To have disagreements while respecting human beings on the other side. Earlier today over thirty people were arrested at one rally. And then tonight, as violence broke out, the rally was canceled all together. Now, the responsibility for that lies with protesters who took violence into their own hands. But in any campaign responsibility starts at the top. Any candidate who is responsible for the culture of the campaign. And when you have a...

State Sen. Kyle McCarter has challenged incumbent U.S. Rep. John Shimkus to a series of town hall debates that have already been scheduled, but the longtime congressman’s campaign said it was not contacted. McCarter, R-Lebanon, is holding a series of town halls in the 15th Congressional District whether or not Shimkus, R-Collinsville, attends, he said. “The voters deserve to see us and hear us together, so they can look us in the eye, ask their questions, voice their concerns and get straightforward answers — no spin,” McCarter said. He challenged Shimkus to commit to “unfiltered and transparent” debates, adding that...

Mayor Rahm Emanuel offered up a warning Monday to Donald Trump after the Republican presidential front-runner failed to denounce an implicit endorsement from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. "I think playing with dark forces [will] come back to haunt you," Emanuel said after casting his vote on the first day of in-person voting in Illinois. "This is not a joke." When asked whether Democrats should underestimate Trump, Emanuel gave what he called a larger statement on the issue. "Donald Trump, in 'The Apprentice' show, that was kind of a faux reality show, where you auditioned for a job,"...

An Illinois judge on Friday said she would decide next month whether she had jurisdiction over a voter's complaint that Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz should not be on the state's primary ballot because he was born in Canada. Lawrence Joyce, a lawyer and pharmacist, filed a complaint in January with the Illinois State Board of Elections saying that under the U.S. Constitution, the Texas senator cannot run for president since he is not a "natural born" citizen. Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta of a Cuban father and an American mother. The Board rejected Joyce's complaint - saying Cruz...

We have a marvelous opportunity to "remove the rascal." In Lebanon is Kyle McCarter, a conservative Illinois state Senator, worthy of your trust. He is a successful businessman, successful in the Illinois state legislature, has fiercely defended the American family, unborn life, gun rights and traditional marriage, is committed to the conservative philosophy of limited government, national sovereignty and traditional values, and pledged to oppose any tax increases Congress proposes and to support economic freedom by working to decrease the tax burden of taxpayers.

(CNN)--Dick Uilhlein, one of the top Republican megadonors nationwide, has decided to back Ted Cruz's presidential campaign and has donated $1 million to his super PAC. Uilhlein committed on Wednesday evening, according to Drew Ryun, a super PAC official with Keep The Promise PAC. "He is one of the top five courted GOP donors," Ryun told CNN. "For us to land him is a good shot in the arm for Ted, and it really sets the stage going into Iowa."(continued)

State Sen. Kyle McCarter is poised to launch a primary challenge to GOP Sen. John Shimkus in Illinois’ 15th District later this week, according to GOP sources. The news shouldn’t come as a complete surprise. McCarter has been openly discussing the possibility with fellow Illinois Republicans since at least August, when I wrote about him in The Rothenberg & Gonzales Political Report. In the last few days, McCarter has been calling various Republicans across the state and has unveiled a new campaign logo (noticeably void of the office he intends to seek) at the Little Egypt parade in Salem on...

Unlike the last two presidential elections when Barack Obama soaked up most of the local campaign contributions to presidential candidates, donors so far this year are splitting their money among about a half-dozen contenders. And while Hillary Clinton is the runaway leader in Illinois — she's collected $1.76 million statewide out of the $2.73 million going to the 14 presidential candidates who had filed disclosure reports through June — she's not even the leading Democratic recipient in East Central Illinois. In the ZIP codes that begin with the "618" prefix — which include most of Champaign, Vermilion and Piatt counties...

President Obama and Jeb Bush have drawn the ire of Sen. Ted Cruz after they attacked Gov. Mike Huckabee for his comments about the Iran nuclear deal. Huckabee said the president’s Iran policy would “take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven.” The president bristled at what he called a “ridiculous” comment. “The particular comments of Mr. Huckabee are just part of a general pattern we’ve seen that would be considered ridiculous if it weren’t so sad,” he said. “We’ve had a sitting senator call John Kerry Pontius Pilate. We’ve had a sitting senator, who also...

July 1, 2015 Mike Flynn has published about a million and a half words on politics and policy. Now, he's trying to put them into practice. Last month, Flynn, an editor for the conservative Breitbart News, announced his bid for the special election to replace former Rep. Aaron Schock in Illinois. The former columnist and founding editor of the Big Government blog decided to make his first run for political office after the scandal-tarred Schock's resignation, arguing that his role in the media prepared him for office. "My position is long-known, established, and out there, and I think that's something...

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that won’t necessarily generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers: * Hillary Clinton didn’t explicitly endorse a $15 minimum wage, but she nevertheless made a surprise call yesterday to a convention of fast-food workers who are rallying for the cause. The Democrat declared, “I want to be your champion.” * On “Face the Nation” yesterday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) reiterated his support for a federal crackdown on states that legalized marijuana. Asked if he would “go after” state experiments, and prohibit the legal use of...

Either Ted Cruz is hip or rap is dead. I am not sure which. It has to be one of the two. A group called We Are Watchmen, a Christian rap group from the Chicago suburb of Westchester, has made what can be loosely described as a “rap paean” to Ted Cruz. It is entitled “Set It On Fire.” It is about four minutes long, and if you listen to it enough times, every ounce of hipness drains from your body and you become Donny Osmond. (VIDEO-AT-LINK)The title is misleading. The gist of the song is that you should vote...

Latin Post presents "Turnout," a series featuring leading Latino politicians, government leaders and advocacy groups discussing and debating the most important issues facing the Latino voting bloc. Listen to the Unedited "Turnout" Interview with People for the American Way's Coordinator for Political Campaigns Carlos Sanchez:(AUDIO-AND-VIDEO-AT-LINK)More than two-thirds of the U.S. Latino electorate live in six states -- Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, New York and Texas -- but one progressive advocacy organization has been working on having anti-Latino and anti-immigrant representatives accountable and heard for Latinos across the country, especially for the presidential election season. With people entering their names for...

A new Rasmussen poll has found that First Lady Michelle Obama would be the strongest challenger to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton if she chose to run in 2016. According to Rasmussen: In a hypothetical matchup with Hillary Clinton, the putative Democratic presidential nominee in 2016, Obama earns 44% support from black voters to Clinton’s 36%. Among Likely Democratic Voters, it’s Clinton 56%, Obama 22%. That appears to be a better showing against Clinton than Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the only other announced Democratic presidential candidate, makes at this point. Among all voters, Clinton earns 37% support to Obama’s 17%....

On Monday, our managing editor Javier Manjarres was on NewsMaxTV’s America’s Forum along with the host of The Agenda, Ari Rabin-Havt discussing Illinois’s new religious freedom law as well as candidates thinking of entering the presidential race. When it came to Illinois’s new religious freedom law, America’s Forum’s host, J.D. Hayworth pointed out Barack Obama voted on a similar law when he was a state senator for Illinois and asked why he was suddenly against it now. Rabin-Havt said the laws back in the day were expected to cover the same thing. He said it was to protect religious beliefs...

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama greet John Aravosis, AMERICAblog, and Anthony Katsivalis during the Christmas holiday Press Reception #1 in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House, Dec. 11, 2014.I was invited to the White House Christmas Party this year (there are 12 or so such parties in fact — ours was the print press party), and invited my nephew Anthony Katsivalis as my guest. Anthony has worked in politics (most recently on the Giannoulias Senate campaign), and now is an Internet marketing specialist in Chicago. I’ve noted this before, and had the same reaction this...