Ultra Vulnerable Mark Kirk 2016: Is he Toast?

[PolitiJunkie]

In the timeline I'm writing, Shaun Donovan is offered is offered a professorship at Harvard in 2015, his alma mater, and Obama, looking to demonstrate bipartisanship without sacrificing ideals by appointing a moderate Republican to his cabinet, taps Mark Kirk for HUD Secretary. Governor Madigan (beat Daley in the Democratic Primary when Quinn declined to seek reelection) appoints Sheila Simon as a placeholder for the rest of the term who won't seek reelection in 2016, and then Michelle Obama defeats Aaron Schock for the seat 61-39 in the regular 2016 election. Sounds like a long-winded chain of events, but I wanted a way for that seat to be a Democratic pickup without having to actually defeat Mark Kirk, one of the few tolerable Republicans in the Senate (he's just so nice and moderate).