My wife and I had decided to vote early and obviously we have made up our mind about the top of the ticket we wanted to look into the other races a bit around Illinois. Given the call to Leave Everything on the Road I wanted to see what would be on the ballot I look at in the Chicago area but also maybe some other races in the state that are not getting as much attention.
First up in the Chicago area is going to be:
United States Senator
Dick Durbin
This guy is in and there are a lot of third party candidates on this; Green, Libertarian and Constitution Party but even the R in this race (though they had a debate last week that had a good exchange on health care) is not on the radar. Durbin has a great ad on right now that is really heartbreaking but so solid:
Some other votes for my area:
State Senator / District 20
Iris E. Martinez
Sen. Martinez has been in this position for six years and at the moment has no one on the ballot though there are some write-ins floating around out there.
State Representative / District 39
Maria Antonia "Toni" Berrios
The first Puerto Rican woman to serve in the Illinois House of Representatives. She does have a challenger, for the first time in her 5 years of holding this seat, on the ballot from the Green party who is getting a decent amount of press in the alternative weekly papers.
4th Congressional District
Luis V. Gutierrez
Seven term Congressman. Has a Republican and a Green challenger.
Interesting and Important:
10th Congressional District
Dan Seals
Though I won't be able to vote for Dan Seals, I wished I could have in 2006 - the guy lost but 6% and he is clearly making room and making this work this time around. Give him some support.
13th Congressional District
Scott Harper
This is a possibility but is a tough district. A month ago the DCCC said this was an emerging race, and it seems to have potential.
14th Congressional District
Bill Foster
I was reluctant to mention this race. It gets a bit forgotten that this is deep red country here and Foster won a special election in March. I really just downright hate how his opponent Jim Oberweis rolls, he's like this guy who never won class president and feels like he must punish the rest of us with his horrible political ads and even worse ads for his diary company. Foster better cream this guy!
I will be trying to post on a lot of the Illinois races, there's a lot of interesting stories out there and a lot of seats to flip. It's the right time and environment.
Know the IL Races
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