The polls have just closed in Illinois’ 14th District. There was a special election to fill the vacancy created when former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert abruptly retired last year. Bill Foster is the Democrat and he is good friends with Rep. Patrick Murphy (PA-08), and will likely be a similar Democrat. Although he is likely to caucus with the Bush Blue Dogs, he is no BushDog. Some polls have shown Foster running a little ahead, but it’s a deadheat in a pretty Republican district. What’s at stake?
Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said a Foster victory in the “rock-ribbed” GOP district would “send a shock wave through the political system that people are absolutely fed up with the status quo.”
Here’s a link to the returns.
I know this is somewhat off-topic, but I couldn’t help notice the small map of the whole state. That’s some pretty impressive gerrymandering!
i’d love to hear more details if you’ve got em. “caucus with bush dogs” what do you mean by that? (i know what it means, i’m asking more for your opinion about the extent of it, in the voting sense) being friendly with PM is great, will it be enough to guarantee he won’t become a bush dog? that’s the question. it’s a hard district for a progressive dem, and i suspect there will be a lot of pressure for any dem, foster or anyone, to act strongly in favor of progressive policy and values.
i think i missed something here.
why would a dem caucus wuth the Bush dogs??
sorry, he will probably caucus with the Blue Dogs, but he isn’t a Bush Dog.
The curious term “Bush dog” is a snarky way of discussing this breed of Democrat. They originally called themselves “blue dogs” to distinguish themselves from “yellow dogs”, the traditional faithful Democratic hound. The blue dogs are democrats who often vote to support Republican positions, but are democrats.
Someone began calling them Bush dogs and it was so appropriate and correct that many followed suit.
TPM is posting results as well. Rep Van Hollen might want to break out the Alka Selzer cause if the first 3% is any indication his horse just died.
The AP seems to have more current returns.
At 9:24, with 55% reporting, Foster is up by 6 points.
64% and the spread is holding AND Obama gained some on hrc 61/38 with the final on WY caucus!!!! not a bad day to be a Dem all in all.
88% in, Foster leads 53-47.
How about them coattails!
This is the web site for the Aurora Beacon News. Aurora is at the east edge of this district. If Bill Foster pulls this off, it will be big news. This is a very Republican district. I live in Rockford just to the north in IL-16 which is also a heavily Republican area.
http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/beaconnews/index.html
Yeah, those numbers come from the AP feed. 94% in. Foster won.
AP officially projects Foster won.
53% to 47% A blowout in Denny Hastert’s stronghold!
The only thing that can stop us in November is Hillary.
what an abject failure Hastert delivered to his party.
Note to the guys who just threw a whole lotta bucks down this rat hole…you didn’t pull the wool over America’s eyes, her vision is 20/20 and she’s pissed.
You can’t fool all the people all of the time. (But you can fool 30% of the people all of the time.)
exactly. now if we could just figure out a way to ban that 30% from breeding!
They’ve tried that – never again…
Something interesting was just pointed out on CNN. With Foster winning, he will become the newest Democratic Superdelegate. Considering Obama’s strong support of the guy (even making a TV ad endorsing him,) I wonder who’s gonna be able to count him, as a superdelegate vote, in their column?
This guy says Foster has already announced he’s supporting Obama.
Almost all the time the home state crowd supports the Favorite Child. IL pols support Obama. NY pols support Hillary (including Rangel).
So this is properly viewed as the home state bias. Welcome NONETHELESS.