Both parties think the 14th District is theirs to take
Last week's primary election is giving leaders in both political parties hope for special and general election victories in the Republican stronghold of the 14th Congressional District.
Both Democrats and Republicans are crunching numbers to claim wins in next month's special election and November's general election. They both point to turnout as one of the major factors in their favor.
Statewide, it's the Democrats who are celebrating the loudest because their turnout was higher across Illinois. Even in Kane County, which sits within the 14th Congressional District and also historically favors the GOP, there were just 524 more Republican than Democratic ballots cast last week. Two years ago in the primary, there were 13,246 more GOP than Democratic ballots cast.
That figure does not include results from the city of Aurora, which runs its own election commission and leans Democratic.
"Kane County's been trending more independent than anything in the past few cycles," county Democratic Central Committee Chairman Mark Guethle said.
Guethle views it as a case where voters are focusing on the candidate more than the party and using some key issues -- health care, education, jobs and pay -- to make those decisions.
Across the entire 14th Congressional District, which includes Kane and portions of seven other Republican-leaning counties, more than 75,000 Democratic ballots were cast last week. In the primary two years ago, there were just 22,831 Democratic votes.
"Illinois Republicans chose to stay home rather than vote in a divisive primary while Illinois Democrats and independents turned out in record numbers to stand for change in former (House) Speaker (Dennis) Hastert's Republican-leaning district," said Ryan Rudominer, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's Midwest regional press secretary.
The Democratic National Committee has targeted the seat in its Red to Blue campaign, which provides financial support for select Democratic challengers fighting in GOP strongholds. In 2006, the program raised nearly $22.6 million for 56 campaigns.
Yet Illinois GOP leaders see the glass half full, pointing out that Republicans last week cast the most votes in a presidential primary since 1988.
"Feb. 5 proved, among many things, that the Illinois Republican Party's efforts to rebuild its grassroots network is succeeding," Illinois GOP Chairman Andy McKenna wrote in a memo to local organizers Thursday.
Democratic voters were bound to storm the polls with two presidential nominees from Illinois on the ballot, McKenna pointed out. And turnout in presidential primaries historically favors the out-of-power party, the Democrats in this case.
McKenna also predicted a GOP victory with Sugar Grove dairy magnate Jim Oberweis as the party's nominee in the March 8 special election to replace Hastert. Oberweis' conservative views on key issues such as abortion, gun control and tax cuts "mirror those of the voters of Illinois' 14th District," McKenna told his party.
Bill Foster, a scientist and businessman from Geneva, won the Democratic primary, though by such a slim margin that the next closest challenger, John Laesch, vows not to give up until every last ballot is counted. McKenna cited the quibble as a point of Democratic weakness.
In 2004, President Bush easily won the district with 55 percent of the vote.
"I think this race is still the Republicans' to lose. It will be a coup if Bill Foster defeats Jim Oberweis," said David Wasserman, U.S. House editor for the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan newsletter of electoral politics.
In addition to having a platform that connects with voters, Oberweis is coming off a very strong primary win -- unlike Foster. A millionaire who pumped big bucks into his campaign war chest, Foster was expected to crush Laesch, a grassroots campaigner who raised just $137,972 between Oct. 1 and Jan. 16 while Foster raised $848,681.
Less than 400 votes separate Foster from Laesch, who vowed not to concede until all the absentee and provisional ballots are counted. Laesch, who promised to back Foster if he officially becomes the party's nominee, dismissed concerns that the Republicans could successfully use the discord to earn more votes in the special or general election.
"I think it's a Democratic year, and the Democratic candidate is going to do fine," Laesch said.
An Oberweis victory is far from definite. A polarizing figure who drew much criticism during a previous campaign for his harsh take on illegal immigration, Oberweis could prove too unlikable to defeat Foster, a bookish former Fermilab physicist with no political baggage.
"Oberweis is the 14th's Hillary. His negatives are way too high," Bill Baar, a Campton Hills resident who supported Oberweis foe Chris Lauzen in the GOP primary, posted on the conservative blog Illinoize last month.
The Oberweis-Lauzen battle was contentious -- a reality Foster's team already is trying to capitalize on. With the special election campaign heating up quickly, Foster said in a news release this week that Oberweis' campaign spokesman "has a long history of dirty politics."
"The next 30 days will bring not just snow to the 14th District, but a lot of mud as well," the release stated.
Regardless of what they've taken from last week's primary election turnout and results, the biggest immediate challenge for Oberweis and Foster could be mobilizing voters on a day that most citizens aren't thinking about elections. March 8 falls on a Saturday.
"That's a much more difficult event to predict," Wasserman said.
Democrats come out this year in the 14th
Mirroring a statewide trend, Democrats in the 14th Congressional District came out in droves to vote in last week's primary election, especially compared to two years ago.
2008
Democratic: 75,030 (49%)
Republican: 77,673 (51%)
2006
Democratic: 22,831 (25%)
Republican: 69,198 (75%)
Source: Illinois State Board of Elections