Suburban voters will play a major role in balance of power

There's a fight being waged right in your backyard.

And on your doorstep, and in your mailbox.

Labor Day weekend marks the traditional kickoff of campaign season, with eight weeks to go until the Nov. 2 election.

An open U.S. Senate seat, a battle of fiscal and social contrasts in the Illinois governor's race, congressional races, and 139 state legislative spots up for grabs all mean one thing - suburban voters will play a major role in deciding the state and nation's balance of power.

And some of the most intense battles are being waged for votes in suburban state House and Senate races, as Democrats try to retain majority power and Republicans try to chip away at that power.

Democrats, at the moment, control the presidency, Congress, the Illinois governor's office as well as both houses of the General Assembly.

But roughly 10 percent of suburbanites are out of work. Many are losing their homes to foreclosure. And Illinois is in major debt, with piles of unpaid bills to schools and social service agencies, and plummeting credit ratings.

Republicans, propelled in part by the anger of the growing tea party movement, are trying to highlight those problems as they move to retain and gain seats.

Democrats, cognizant of dwindling enthusiasm, are trying to recapture the energy of Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign to get voters out to the booth.

On both party's minds? Suburban voters.

Many parts of Cook, Lake, McHenry, DuPage and Kane Counties are no longer the hard-line Republican areas they once were, 20 and 30 years ago, points out Paul Green, professor of political science at Roosevelt University.

That makes them "the" key battleground this upcoming election.

"The suburbs are full of independent voters that are uncomfortable with one party having total control," state Sen. Matt Murphy, a Palatine Republican and 2010 primary candidate for lieutenant governor, said. "The mindset is let's get some balance back. That coupled with a lot of real fear and anxiety that's out there."

As it stands right now, Democrats have 37 of 59 state Senate seats. In the House, they have 70 of 118.

In the November election, 21 of the Senate's 59 seats are up for grabs. A total of 16 are contested - four of the hottest races are in the suburbs.

While Democrats cannot lose control of the Senate this election, Republicans need to gain only two seats to take a supermajority away from them, said Republican Senate Leader Christine Radogno, of Lemont.

In order to override a veto or approve more debt for the state, there must be a three-fifths, or supermajority, vote in both the House and Senate. The same goes for legislation voted on after May 31, like the budget. The loss of Senate seats would make it tougher for Democrats to automatically pass or veto laws, and comes into play more than ever heading into a redistricting year.

Senate President John Cullerton, a Chicago Democrat, though, called losing the supermajority "meaningless," something that "isn't a concern at all."

Still, Republican Party officials believe they have the strongest chance to pick up those seats in two suburban races - the 22nd District, covering a portion of the Fox Valley, and the 31st District in Lake County. Both feature freshman Democratic incumbents and Republican opponents ready for a tough fight.

"Freshman Democrats are presumably the most logical marginal seats," said John Jackson, a professor with Southern Illinois University's Paul Simon Public Policy Institute.

In the 22nd District, former Republican state Sen. Steve Rauschenberger is making a run to take back the seat he held for 14 years against Democrat Michael Noland. Rauschenberger gave up his seat to run for lieutenant governor in 2006, a bid which he lost.

With years experience, Rauschenberger has name recognition in the Fox Valley district, and many voters have expressed anger at Noland over pushing school funding legislation to help the 41,000-student Elgin Area School District U-46, then calling Gov. Pat Quinn's veto an "understandably calculated political decision."

Democrats, who know the race will be tight, are pouring major money into the race. The Senate Democratic Victory Fund has spent more than $25,500 on Noland's campaign, according to semiannual financial reports, released in July. The Republican State Senate Committee, by contrast, has spent about $13,400 on Rauschenberger's.

In the 31st District, Democrat Michael Bond of Grayslake faces a tough fight against Lake County Board Chairwoman Suzi Schmidt, a Lake Villa Republican. Bond won in 2006 with the support of the late state Sen. Adeline Geo-Karis, the veteran Republican who'd held the post for decades but lost to Republican Suzanne Simpson in the GOP primary that year.

In the House, all 118 seats are up. Twenty of the 28 suburban house races are contested.

And Republicans need to pick up 12 seats to wipe out the Democratic majority. During the so-called "Republican revolution" of 1994, when the party regained control of both Congress and the General Assembly, they did just that in that state legislature, picking up 13 seats.

This time around, several suburban races will be key.

In the 43rd House District in the Fox Valley, former two-term Republican Sen. Ruth Munson is trying to make a comeback after she was unseated in 2008 by Democrat Keith Farnham by a few hundred votes.

In Arlington Heights, Republicans have fielded an experienced candidate to take on Democratic state Rep. Mark Walker. He won an open seat from the Republicans in a heated race in 2008 with 53 percent of the vote against a veteran Elk Grove Village trustee. This election's GOP candidate is David Harris, a state representative between 1983 and 1992, former President George W. Bush's point person on Iraq reconstruction and a former adjunct general of the Illinois National Guard.

These races, like a number downstate, "all pivot on voter turnout," professor Jackson said.

Cullerton and Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin are helping lead a campaign aimed at getting more Democrats - including those who cast ballots for the first time ever to elect Obama - to the voting booths for the close U.S. Senate race, and governor's race, as well as the state legislative races.

"You just have to persuade some Democrats to vote," Cullerton said. "There's a falloff, and we have economic downtimes. ... It's not that they're mad, they're discouraged."

Green said Democrats almost certainly will be able to withstand the embarrassment of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's corruption charges, because they displayed an anxiousness in dealing with the matter.

But when you come to the economy" he warned, "that's trouble."

As anger grows locally and nationally about continued economic issues, Republicans will run on promises of job creation and economic recovery, a focus, Jackson says, that is likely to trickle down all the way to the state legislative races. "It's their mantra that jobs and economic growth will fix the problem. When something's working at the top of the tickets, it's natural legislative candidates will fall behind that."

At the top of the Illinois ticket, Quinn and state Sen. Bill Brady are battling it out as the two major party candidates.

Quinn, a Chicago Democrat, carries with him the baggage of the state's $13 billion debt, his support of a tax increase, and the legislature's refusal to pass his budget plans.

Brady, a Republican and downstate businessman, has deflected questions about his social stances, such opposing abortion even in the cases of rape or incest. Instead, he's hammered at Quinn's call to raise income taxes from 3 to 4 percent, and outlined a plan to jump start the economy with job-creation tax credits and a repeal of the estate tax and gas tax.

Professor Green noted that in 16 congressional midterm elections since 1946, the party in power has lost seats in every election but two.

"I think nationally (Republicans) have an excellent chance with both chambers. In the state Senate, that'll be much more difficult.

But again, Democrats are worried. You have to be worried. The only saving grace is that Barack Obama is still more popular in Illinois than he is in the rest of the country. But those districts in the suburbs, the Obama factor won't be much of a help. You have middle class families really being squeezed," he said.