Illinois state candidates

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  Filing for the March primary in Illinois closed today:

Candidates are as follows:

Governor and Lieutenant Governor

Pat Quinn/Paul Vallas (D inc)
Tio Hardiman/Donald Brunell (D)

   The delicious irony in this is that Hardiman as an African American from the west side of Chicago will probably have his best performance in several conservative downstate counties that are almost 100% white.  Quinn is disliked enough that people who regularly vote in the Democratic primary will vote for Hardiman simply because he is not Quinn.  He could carry a dozen or so counties.  It happened back in 2006 when Edwin Eisendrath ran an insurgent campaign against unpopular incumbent Rod Blagojevich.

Dan Rutherford/Steve Kim (R)
Kirk W. Dillard/Jil Tracy (R)
Bill Brady/Maria Rodriguez (R)
Bruce Rauner/Evelyn Sanguinetti (R)
Peter Edward Jones/- (R)

Attorney General:

Lisa Madigan (D inc)
Paul M. Schimpf (R-sacrificial lamb)

Secretary of State:

Jesse White (D inc)
Michael Webster (R-sacrificial lamb)

Comptroller:

Judy Baar Topinka (R inc)
Sheila Simon (D present Lt Governor)

State Treasurer:

Tom Cross (R)
Bob Grogan (R)
Michael W. Frerichs (D)

  This is also an interesting race.  Incumbent Dan Rutherford (R) is running for Governor.  Tom Cross is the former GOP minority leader in the house.  What will be perhaps the most interesting is how Senator Frerichs performs downstate.  He is the first non-Chicago metropolitan area Democrat to run for state office in quite some time.  He may run several points ahead of the rest of the ticket downstate.

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