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Survey also shows written-off GOP senator trailing by just 2 points Republican Donald Trump is within 6 points of Democrat Hillary Clinton in President Obama’s home state, a poll released Wednesday suggests. The survey by Emerson College, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points, shows Clinton leading Trump 45 percent to 39 percent in Illinois. The state’s Democratic challenger for the Senate, Rep. Tammy Duckworth, leads incumbent Republican Mark Kirk by 2 points. That is closer than other polls; most observers consider Kirk the most endangered incumbent senator running for re-election this year. The...

Via the Daily Rushbo, right on both counts. It wasn’t so much an anti-Trump riot, Limbaugh notes, as an anti-Trump-supporter riot “since they are really violently protesting … American citizens exercising their constitutional right to express their political opinion.” Indeed. Anti-American, straight up. And the more violence there is aimed at Trump and his fans, especially by people waving Mexican flags, the more swing voters will conclude that an authoritarian whose centerpiece proposal involves a border wall might be just what the doctor ordered after all. He’s also right that some well-known lefties were quick to denounce the riot last...

If you’re Donald Trump, you can’t buy publicity like this from his enemies in San Diego yesterday: As hundreds of protesters outside his rally here Friday afternoon chanted obscenities, waved Mexican flags and clashed with police, Donald Trump reveled on stage in the drama his candidacy has created. More: One poster referenced Trump’s wife, who immigrated to the United States from Slovenia: “The Art of the Deal. Deport Melania. Legalize 11 million.” Another: “Trump, Shame of America.” Another: “Jesus would not vote for Trump.” And: “Racist, go home.” As the rally progressed inside, a few protesters — including two women...

To his credit, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas admits he is not a warm and fuzzy guy. In the town hall before Wisconsin's primary, he acknowledged, “What I will say is I'm a pretty driven guy. That has pros and cons. I have always been a very driven guy.” In a GOP debate in October, he offered, “If you want someone to grab a beer with, I may not be that guy. But if you want someone to drive you home, I will get the job done and I will get you home.” Now it is true that the most...

I believe that there are a lot of things we do in life not because they will be fun, but just because we want to say we did them. For me, one of those things ended up being attending a local Ted Cruz rally last week (March 14, 2016) with a few of my friends. Before this, my friends and I had never been to any sort of political rally. This was certainly an interesting choice to be our first. Supporters in the crowd wore election-themed shirts and fervently waved posters in the air. Among the messages portrayed through this...

Delegates discuss contacting other campaigns for advice, lack of organisation and the disappearance of state chair Kent Gray during anxious conference call Illinois delegates elected to represent Donald Trump have voiced fears about chaotic organisation and a lack of leadership in their state as Republicans prepare for what could be the first contested convention in decades. During a torturous two-hour conference call on Thursday night, the delegates struggled to figure out how to help the frontrunner at the Republican National Convention in July, wondering how best to contact the campaign in Wisconsin for tips. Anxiety was mounting throughout the conference...

Overflow crowds in Peoria greeted 2016 presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on his third of five Monday rallies in Illinois the day before Tuesday's pivotal primary elections. Cruz commented that republican frontrunner Donald Trump "may be the one person on the face of the planet Hillary Clinton can beat in a general election" according to political reporter Rosie Gray. Cruz mentioned Cook County politics, garnering boos from the crowd in reference to Chicago, Illinois. He slammed Trump over donations to politicians such as the disgraced and imprisoned Rod Blagojevich, the Cook County Democratic Party, and Rahm Emmanuel....

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...