2008 is a Presidential year and Dick Durbin will be up for reelection. While he has midling approval ratings, he should win that race relatively easily. The targets then are the House seats that have reasonable chance to be flipped.
IL-6 Roskam will be a Freshman, but will also have a ton of money from groups like the Club for Growth
IL-10 Beg Dan Seals to run again. He’ll win in a Presidential election year.
IL-11 Pavich showed some life, but whether he’d want to try again or not, there would need to be some changes to how the campaign was run (obvious when you lose). Part of the problem is the District is pretty unmanageable given the geography and without State Party support that race is going to be hard to put together.
IL-14 Open seat then if not sooner. It’s a 55-45 District for Republicans in Presidential years. That certainly means it is a potential target–IL-8 is slightly more Republican. It’s a tough race for two reasons. First, there is relatively little Democratic infrastructure in the District (not none, but a not a lot) and it’s ultimately conservative District. Dems can hope Lauzen runs and wins the primary, but that’s hope and not a plan.
IL-17 Hold for Hare who did a good job. The danger is that the GOP might actually find a good candidate. So far there is no evidence of that being a danger.
Some will point to other Districts, but there is little evidence they will be competitive, especially in a Presidential election when the base turns out pretty strongly. IL-15 showed a bit of life with Gill’s run, but that District is probably worse in terms of geography than even IL-11.
Don’t forget there’s a strong chance that Jesse Jackson Jr.’s seat may be up for grabs between now and then.
As for Seals, I certainly hope and pray he runs again. I had the pleasure of meeting him twice, and he is awesome. There’s no reason for IL-10 to be held by a republican. One of Rahm’s many failures was backing Duckworth in Red 6 instead of trying to flip a blue district to a Democrat.
Not to mention picking sides in the IL-6 primary. Bleargh. This was part of the whole “Fighting Dems” circle jerk, which I hated when kos was into it and when Rahm was into it. Biography is not destiny.
howsabout the state legislature redistrict? Dem congressional candidates got 1.8 million votes to the GOP’s 1.3 million; only one Dem faced a close race. Getting some of Jan’s voters into IL-10; some of Rahm’s into IL-06; and some of Bobby Rush’s into Biggert’s district could just make some big changes happen.
Heck, we could even throw a sop to the GOP saying we’ll agree to change the law and allow for bipartisan commissions to do the 2012 redistricting — then we can feel good that it’s the right thing to do, AND stick it to the GOP…
it’ll be Tim Schmitz, not Lauzen. He’ll be harder to beat. All the votes are in Kane County and Tim’s a great candidate.
I thought that Tom Cross would be the guy to run for Hastert’s seat.
Dan Seals could become the Abner Mikva of Illinois 10. Democrats should give strong consideration to redistricting right now. The vote total is a secondary consideration, the map is an abomination. Hare’s district runs 2/3 of the length of the state.
I say re-draw the map and put Shimkus and LaHood in one district or perhaps better yet, put Shimkus in Costello’s district.
The first question to ask is what seats will be open.
Apparently, Hastert lacks the self-respect to retire before 2008. That’s fine by me. A snap retirement would probably benefit the GOP.
If Jesse Jackson, Jr. wins the mayor’s race that seat would be vacant, but it will stay in Dem hands.
Isn’t Shimkus supposed to retire? Won’t his health issues be aggravated by minorititus?
I don’t see Johnson, Kirk, Weller, Biggert or LaHood retiring. Maybe Manzullo?
I suppose Kirk might run against Durbin to avoid a challenge from Seals, but he’d lose badly enough that he wouldn’t improve his standing to run for gov.
Speaking of the governor race in 2010, what about Peter Fitzgerald? If he’s looking for some vindication and willing to write the big check, he’d seem to be a reasonable GOP candidate. Any port in a storm…
BTW, have the Greens made their intentions clear on what the party will do with ballot access in 2008. Conceivably the party could recruit candidates for U.S. House.
If the Greens did this I expect that it would make Bean and Hare more vulnerable. However, since Bean won with Scheurer in the race, I doubt a Green would cause her to lose. Hare’s probably in the same boat.
However, having Green candidates against Roskam, Kirk & Weller would probably make it harder for Dem challengers to raise money.
The Greens might want something in exchange for playing nice with the Dems. Would Madigan be open to some ballot reform issues? Perhaps letting citizens vote a first and second choice for statewide races in 2008?
Sun Times:
“Congressmen Jesse Jackson Jr. and Luis Gutierrez have decided not to run for mayor, clearing Mayor Daley’s path to re-election after nearly three years of scandal.”
Majority. Plums and pork.
Da Mayor gets a free ride.
The 13th is ripe for a serious challenger that is financed. I also have heard that Biggert has considered retirement – don’t know how reliable my source is (and it was after the 2004 election) – but retire or not her seat is vulnerable if there’s a serious challenge. Neither Andersen (2004) nor Shannon (2006) had any money to speak of (we’re talking around $50k and $100k respectively) and yet Shannon got 40%. Will County has grown in the last few years as a Democratic area and is actually electing Dems in Judy’s district. DuPage is progressing (if we’re not there yet) and the Cook portion of the district is receptive to Dems.
Biggert helped write “No Child,” she supports the president on anything that matters and she uses her pro-choice abortion stance and pro-stem cell research stance to have people believe she’s moderate. A good Democratic candidate would take her out.
Without redistricting, the only way a Democrat has a chance in IL-15 is to spend a year or so going door to door and shaking every hand in the district. Even then you’ll need the right candidate (personable, good bio, moderate).
Joe Shannon was pretty much invisible and I suspect that money was the reason. Instead of wasting $3M on Tammy Duckworth, Rahm could have dropped a few bucks on Shannon and we would have had a much clearer idea about Biggert’s vulnerability. If she retires, I expect Kirk Dillard to run for her spot.
IL-10 isn’t THAT blue (Bush won it in 2004, though just barely). Still I think the easiest way Kirk keeps his seat in 2008 is by switching parties. He and Melissa Bean (for one) aren’t too far apart. I don’t expect it to happen and hope it doesn’t. I’d rather have a real progressive rep.
The Dems need to get someone from the Joliet area to run against Weller to have any chance of taking that seat, instead of some guy who thinks the price of corn is unimportant. Otherwise Weller gets reelected again.
IL-10 was 53-47 for Kerry in 2004 which is a mirror of IL-6.
Yeah you’re right. I was thinking of just the Cook county 10th dist numbers. Sorry!