Peter Roskam
Roskam raised nearly $400,000 for his Congressional Campaign in Illinois’ 6th District, but that’s not directly why he is the winner. Roskam is proud and loud social conservative who faced two more moderate opponents in the Republican primary. While he was likely to win with strong establishment support, the danger to him was that in a bruising primary he would be painted as a far right extremist by his opponents. Whomever the Democratic candidate ended up being, the words of Roskam’s primary opponents could be used against him to paint him as extreme. With Pankau and Carney bowing out of the race, Roskam avoids that bloodbath and gets to set the agenda for the general election on his own while the Democratic Primary continues.
Runner Up 1: Melissa Bean. Huge fundraising quarter with $460,000 raised and $735,000 Cash on hand putting her third amongst House Freshman and first for Democratic Freshman. Even better, while the field was cleared in IL-06, IL-08 has a three way primary on the Republican side that is likely to be ugly and result in hurt feelings between the moderate and conservative wings of the party.
Runner Up 2: John Pavich. Who? The guy who raised $100,000 in his first quarter as a candidate in IL-11. He’ll be running against Jerry Weller and has already raised 1/3 of the amount Weller’s last opponent, Tari Renner, raised. It’ll be a tough race, but he’s established himself as a legitimate contender in Democratic donor circles.